FICTION 


0 


IF  YOU   DON'T 
WRITE    FICTION 


By 

CHARLES  PHELPS  GUSHING 


NEW  YORK 

ROBERT  M.  MCBRIDE  Gf  COMPANY 

1920 


Copyright,      1920,      by 
ROBERT    M.    McBRiDE    &    Co. 


Printed      in      the 
United     States     of     America 


Published.    Tune,    1920 


To 

COUSIN  ANN 

who  "doesn't  write  fiction,"  but  who  is  ambitious  to 
market  magazine  articles,  this  little  book  is  affection- 
ately dedicated.  If  it  can  save  her  some  tribulations 
along  the  road  that  leads  to  acceptances,  the  author 
will  feel  that  his  labors  have  been  well  enough  repaid. 


The  author  thanks  the  editors  of  The 
Bookman,  Outing  and  the  Kansas  City 
Star  for  granting  permission  to  reprint 
certain  passages  that  here  appear  in  revised 
form. 

C.  P.  C 


PREFACE 

THE  publisher  assures  me  that  no  one  but  a 
book  reviewer  ever  reads  prefaces,  so  I  seize 
upon  the  opportunity  to  have  a  tete-a-tete  with 
my  critics.  Gentlemen,  my  cards  are  face  up  on 
the  table.  I  have  declared  to  the  publisher  that 
nearly  every  American  who  knows  how  to  read 
longs  to  find  his  way  into  print,  and  should  ap- 
preciate some  of  the  dearly  bought  hints  herein 
contained  upon  practical  journalism.  And,  as  I 
kept  my  face  straight  when  I  said  it,  he  may 
have  taken  me  seriously.  Perhaps  he  thinks  he 
has  a  best  seller. 

But  this  is  just  between  ourselves.  As  he 
never  reads  prefaces,  he  won't  suspect  unless 
you  tell  him.  My  own  view  of  the  matter  is 
that  Harold  Bell  Wright  need  not  fear  me,  but 
that  the  editors  of  the  Baseball  Rule  Book  may 
be  forced  to  double  their  annual  appropriation 
for  advertising  in  the  literary  sections. 

As  the  sport  of  free  lance  scribbling  has  a 

great  deal  in  common  with  fishing,  the  author  of 

this  little  book  may  be  forgiven  for  suggesting 

that  in  intention  it  is  something  like  Izaak  Wal- 

v 


vi  PREFACE 

ton's  "Compleat  Angler,"  in  that  it  attempts  to 
combine  practical  helpfulness  with  a  narrative  of 
mild  adventures.  For  what  the  book  contains  be- 
sides advice,  I  make  no  apologies,  for  it  is  set 
down  neither  in  embarrassment  nor  in  pride. 
Many  readers  there  must  be  who  would  like 
nothing  better  than  to  dip  into  chapters  from 
just  such  a  life  as  mine.  Witness  how  Edward 
FitzGerald,  half  author  of  the  "Rubaiyat,"  sighed 
to  read  more  lives  of  obscure  persons,  and  that 
Arthur  Christopher  Benson,  from  his  "College 
Window,"  repeats  the  wish  and  adds : 

"The  worst  of  it  is  that  people  often  are  so 
modest;  they  think  that  their  own  experience  is 
so  dull,  so  unromantic,  so  uninteresting.  It  is 
an  entire  mistake.  If  the  dullest  person  in  the 
world  would  only  put  down  sincerely  what  he 
or  she  thought  about  his  or  her  life,  about  work, 
love,  religion  and  emotion,  it  would  be  a  fascinat- 
ing document." 

But,  you  may  protest,  by  what  right  do  the 
experiences  of  a  magazine  free  lance  pass  as 
"adventures"  ? 

Then,  again,  I  shall  have  to  introduce  expert 
testimony : 

"The  literary  life,"  says  no  less  an  authority 
than  H.  G.  Wells,  "is  one  of  the  modern  forms 
of  adventure." 

And  this  holds  as  true  for  the  least  of  scrib- 


PREFACE  vii 

biers  as  it  does  for  great  authors.  While  the 
writer  whose  work  excites  wide  interest  is  seeing 
the  world  and  meeting,  as  Mr.  Wells  lists  them, 
"philosophers,  scientific  men,  soldiers,  artists, 
professional  men,  politicians  of  all  sorts,  the  rich, 
the  great,"  you  may  behold  journalism's  small 
fry  courageously  sallying  forth  to  hunt  editorial 
lions  with  little  butterfly  nets.  The  sport  re- 
quires a  firm  jaw  and  demands  that  the  adven- 
turer keep  all  his  wits  about  him.  Any  novice 
who  doubts  me  may  have  a  try  at  it  himself  and 
see !  But  first  he  had  better  read  this  "Compleat 
Free  Lancer."  Its  practical  hints  may  save  him 
— or  should  I  say  her? — many  a  needless  disap- 
pointment. 

C.  P.  C. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

PREFACE      v 

I.    ABOUT  NOSES  AND  JAWS       ...  1 

II.    How  TO  PREPARE  A  MANUSCRIPT     .  10 

III.  How  TO  TAKE  PHOTOGRAPHS      .     .  16 

IV.  FINDING  A  MARKET 25 

V.    A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES  .  32 

VI.  IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET"  .  43 

VII.  SOMETHING  TO  SELL 54 

VIII.  WHAT  THE  EDITOR  WANTS  ...  61 

IX.  AND  IF  You  Do— 72 

X.  FOREVER  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  .  .  79 


IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE 
FICTION 

CHAPTER   I 

ABOUT  NOSES  AND  JAWS 

A  FOXHOUND  scents  the  trail  of  his  game 
and  tracks  it  straight  to  a  killing.  A  lap- 
dog  lacks  this  capability.  In  the  same  way,  there 
are  breeds  of  would-be  writers  who  never  can 
acquire  a  "nose  for  news,"  and  others  who,  from 
the  first  day  that  they  set  foot  in  editorial  rooms, 
are  hot  on  the  trail  that  leads  to  billboard  head- 
lines on  the  front  page  of  a  newspaper  or  ac- 
ceptances from  the  big  magazines. 

Many  writers  who  are  hopelessly  clumsy  with 
words  draw  fat  pay  checks  because  they  have  a 
faculty  for  smelling  out  interesting  facts.  In 
the  larger  cities  there  are  reporters  with  keen 
noses  for  news  who  never  write  a  line  from 
one  year's  end  to  another,  but  do  all  of  their 
work  by  word  of  mouth  over  the  telephone. 
1 


2      IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

To  the  beginner  such  facts  as  these  seem  to 
indicate  that  any  one  can  win  in  journalism  who 
has  the  proper  kind  of  nose.  This  conclusion  is 
only  a  half-truth,  but  it  is  good  for  the  novice  to 
learn — and  as  soon  as  possible — that  the  first 
requisite  toward  "landing"  in  the  newspapers  and 
magazines  is  to  know  a  "story"  when  he  sees 
one. 

In  the  slang  of  the  newspaper  shop  a  "story" 
means  non-fiction.  It  may  be  an  interview.  It 
may  be  an  account  of  a  fire.  It  may  be  a  page 
of  descriptive  writing  for  the  Sunday  magazine 
section.  It  may  be  merely  a  piece  of  "human 
interest." 

As  my  own  experience  in  journalism  covers 
barely  fifteen  years,  the  writer  would  not  be  bold 
enough  to  attempt  to  define  a  "story"  further 
than  to  state  that  it  is  something  in  which  an 
editor  hopes  his  public  will  be  interested  at  the 
time  the  paper  or  magazine  appears  upon  the 
newsstands.  To-morrow  morning  or  next  month 
the  same  readers  might  not  feel  the  slightest  in- 
terest in  the  same  type  of  contribution. 

Timeliness  of  some  sort  is  important,  yet  a 
"story"  may  have  little  to  do  with  what  in  the 
narrower  sense  is  usually  thought  of  as  "news" 
• — such  as  this  morning's  happenings  in  the  stock 
markets  or  the  courts,  or  the  fire  in  Main  Street. 
The  news  interest  in  this  restricted  sense  may 


ABOUT  NOSES  AND  JAWS  3 

dangle  from  a  frayed  thread.  The  timeliness  of 
the  contribution  may  be  vague  and  general.  We 
may  not  be  able  to  do  more  than  sense  it.  This 
is  one  reason  why  men  of  academic  minds,  who 
love  exact  definitions,  never  feel  quite  at  ease 
when  they  attempt  to  deal  with  the  principles  of 
journalism. 

We  practical  men,  who  earn  a  living  as  writers, 
feel  no  more  at  ease  than  the  college  professors 
when  we  attempt  to  deal  with  these  principles. 
When  we  are  cub  reporters  we  are  likely  to  con- 
ceive the  notion  that  a  "story"  is  anything  start- 
ling enough,  far  enough  removed  from  the  nor- 
mal, to  catch  public  attention  by  its  appeal  to 
curiosity.  Later,  we  perceive  that  this  explains 
only  half  of  the  case.  The  other  half  may  baffle 
us  to  the  end.  Instance  the  fact  that  a  great 
many  manuscripts  sell  to  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines upon  the  merits  of  that  mysterious  element 
in  writing  known  as  "human  interest."  If  a 
reward  were  offered  for  an  identification  of  "hu- 
man interest"  no  jury  could  agree  upon  the  prize- 
winning  description.  A  human  interest  story 
sometimes  slips  past  the  trained  nose  of  a  reporter 
of  twenty  years'  experience  and  is  picked  up  by 
a  cub.  It  is  something  you  tell  by  the  scent. 

This  scent  for  the  trail  of  a  "story"  may  be 
sharpened  by  proper  training,  and  one  of  the 
best  places  for  a  beginner  to  acquire  such  train- 


4      IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

ing — and  earn  his  living  in  the  meantime — is  in 
a  newspaper  office.  Yet  nothing  could  be  fur- 
ther from  the  present  writer's  intention  than 
to  advise  all  beginners  in  journalism  to  apply 
for  jobs  as  reporters.  Some  of  the  most  success- 
ful magazine  contributors  in  America  have  never 
set  foot  inside  of  a  newspaper  plant  except  to 
pay  a  subscription  to  the  paper  or  to  insert  a 
want  ad  for  a  chauffeur  or  a  butler. 

If  you  have  nose  sense  for  what  the  public  is 
eager  to  read,  newspaper  experience  can  teach 
you  nothing  worth  while  unless  it  is  a  deeper 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  As  a  reporter  you 
will  view  from  behind  the  scenes  what  the  peo- 
ple of  an  American  community  are  like  and  catch 
some  fleeting  glimpses  of  the  more  unusual  hap- 
penings in  their  lives.  You  may,  or  may  not, 
emerge  from  this  experience  a  better  writer  than 
you  were  when  you  went  in.  Your  style  may 
become  simpler  and  more  forceful  by  newspaper 
training.  Or  it  may  become  tawdry,  sloppy  and 
inane. 

"Newspapers,"  observed  Charles  Lamb,  "al- 
ways excite  curiosity.  No  one  ever  lays  one 
down  without  a  feeling  of  disappointment." 
That  was  true  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  appears 
to  be  just  as  true  to-day. 

Fortunately,  the  men  who  write  the  news  get 
more  out  of  the  work  than  do  their  readers.  The 


ABOUT  NOSES  AND  JAWS  5 

reporter  usually  can  set  down  only  a  fraction  of 
the  interesting  facts  that  he  picks  up  about  a 
"story."  His  work  may  be  eternally  disappoint- 
ing to  the  public,  but  it  is  rarely  half  so  dull  to 
the  man  who  does  the  writing. 

No  life  into  which  the  average  modern  can 
dip  is  so  rich  in  interest  for  the  first  year  or  two 
as  that  of  the  reporter  working  upon  general  as- 
signments. A  fling  at  hobo  life,  ten  voyages  at 
sea  and  more  than  two  years  of  army  life  (a  year 
and  a  half  of  this  time  spent  in  trekking  all  over 
the  shattered  landscape  of  France)  do  not  shake 
my  conviction  that  the  adventurer  most  to  be 
envied  in  our  times  is  the  cub  reporter  enjoying 
the  first  thrills  and  glamors  of  breaking  into 
print.  There  is  a  scent  in  the  air,  which,  though 
it  be  only  ink  and  paper,  makes  the  cub's  blood 
course  faster  the  minute  he  steps  into  the  office 
corridor;  and  as  he  mounts  the  stairs  to  the 
local  room  the  throbbing  of  the  presses  makes 
him  wonder  if  this  is  not  literally  the  "heart  of 
the  city." 

He  makes  his  rounds  of  undertakers'  shops, 
courtrooms,  army  and  navy  recruiting  offices,  rail- 
way stations,  jails,  markets,  clubs,  police  and 
fire  headquarters.  He  is  sent  to  picnics  and 
scenes  of  murders.  He  is  one  of  the  greenest 
of  novices  in  literary  adventure,  but,  quite  like 
an  H.  G.  Wells,  he  meets  in  his  community 


6      IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

"philosophers,  scientific  men,  soldiers,  artists, 
professional  men,  politicians  of  all  sorts,  the  rich, 
the  great." 

He  is  underpaid  and  overworked.  He  has  no 
time  to  give  his  writings  literary  finish;  and,  in 
the  end,  unless  he  develops  either  into  a  special- 
ist or  an  executive,  he  may  wear  himself  out  in 
hard  service  and  be  cast  upon  the  scrap  heap. 
At  first,  the  life  is  rich  and  varied.  Then,  after 
a  while,  the  reporter  finds  his  interest  growing 
jaded.  The  same  kind  of  assignment  card  keeps 
cropping  up  for  him,  day  after  day.  He  per- 
ceives that  he  is  in  a  rut.  He  tells  himself: 
"I've  written  that  same  story  half  a  dozen  times 
before." 

Then  is  the  time  for  him  to  settle  himself  to 
do  some  serious  thinking  about  his  future.  Does 
he  have  it  in  him  to  become  an  executive?  Or 
does  he  discover  a  special  taste,  worth  cultivating, 
for  finance,  or  sport,  or  editorial  writing?  If 
so,  he  has  something  like  .a  future  in  the  news- 
paper office. 

But  if  what  he  really  longs  to  do  is  to  contrib- 
ute to  the  magazines  or  to  write  books,  he  is 
at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  He  should  seize 
now  upon  every  opportunity  to  discover  topics 
of  wide  interest,  and  in  his  spare  time  he  should 
attempt  to  write  articles  on  these  topics  and  ship 
them  off  to  market. 


ABOUT  NOSES  AND  JAWS  7 

He  has  laid  the  first  solid  foundation  of  suc- 
cessful freelancing,  for  if  he  has  been  able  to 
survive  as  long  as  six  months  in  the  competition 
of  the  local  room  he  has  a  nose  for  what  con- 
stitutes a  "story." 

The  next  thing  he  has  to  learn  is  that  an  ar- 
ticle for  a  magazine  differs  chiefly  from  a  news- 
paper story  in  that  the  magazine  must  make  a 
wider  appeal — to  a  national  rather  than  to  a  lo- 
cal interest.  The  successful  magazine  writer  is 
simply  a  reporter  who  knows  what  the  general 
public  likes  to  read,  and  who  has  learned  when 
and  where  and  how  to  market  what  he  produces. 
Timeliness  is  as  important  as  ever,  so  he  must 
look  to  his  tenses.  The  magazine  article  will  not 
appear  until  from  ten  days  to  six  months  or  more 
after  it  is  accepted.  Some  of  our  magazines  be- 
gin making  up  their  Christmas  numbers  in  July, 
so  he  must  learn  to  sweat  to  the  tinkle  of  sleigh 
bells. 

I  wonder  how  many  hundreds  of  ambitious 
newspaper  reporters  are  at  this  very  minute  urg- 
ing themselves  to  extra  effort  after  hours  and 
on  their  precious  holidays  and  Sundays  to  test 
their  luck  in  the  magazine  markets?  The  num- 
ber must  be  considerable  if  my  experience  as  a 
member  of  the  editorial  staff  of  a  big  national 
magazine  allows  me  to  make  a  surmise.  I  have 
read  through  bushels  of  manuscripts  that  had 


8      IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

the  ear  marks  of  the  newspaper  office  all  over 
them.  They  were  typed  on  the  cheap  kind  of 
"copy  paper"  that  is  used  only  in  "city  rooms." 
The  first  sheet  rarely  had  a  title,  for  the  news- 
paper reporter's  habit  is  to  leave  headline  writ- 
ing to  a  "copy  reader."  Ink  and  dust  had  filled 
in  such  letters  as  "a"  and  "e"  and  "o."  Most 
of  the  manuscripts  were  done  with  characteristic 
newspaper  office  haste,  and  gave  indication  some- 
where in  the  text  that  the  author  had  not  the 
faintest  notion  of  how  far  in  advance  of  the 
date  line  the  magazine  had  to  make  up  its  table 
of  contents. 

Many  of  these  novices  showed  a  promise  in 
skill  that  might  give  some  uneasy  moments  to 
our  most  prosperous  magazine  headliners.  If 
only  there  were  firm  jaws  back  of  the  promise! 
These  men  had  the  nose  for  journalistic  success, 
but  that  alone  will  not  carry  them  far  unless  it 
is  backed  with  a  fighting  jaw. 

I  look  back  sometimes  to  cub  days  and  name 
over  the  reporters  who  at  that  time  showed  the 
greatest  ability.  Three  of  the  most  brilliant  are 
still  drudging  along  in  the  old  shop  on  general 
assignments,  for  little  more  money  than  they 
made  ten  years  ago.  One  did  a  book  of  real 
merit  and  the  effort  he  expended  upon  it  over- 
came him  with  ennui.  Another  made  the  mis- 
take of  supposing  that  he  could  pin  John  Bar- 


ABOUT  NOSES  AND  JAWS  9 

leycorn's  shoulders  to  the  mat.  Another  hid  no 
initiative.  He  is  dying  in  his  tracks. 

Who  now  are  rated  as  successes  on  the  roll 
call  of  those  cub  reporter  days?  Not  our  gen- 
iuses, but  a  dozen  fellows  who  had  the  most 
determination  and  perseverance.  The  men  who 
won  were  the  men  who  tried,  and  tried  again 
and  then  kept  on  trying. 

Mr.  Dooley  was  quite  right  about  opportunity : 
"Opporchunity  knocks  at  every  man's  dure 
wanst.  On  some  men's  dures  it  hammers  till 
it  breaks  down  the  dure  and  goes  in  an'  wakes 
him  up  if  he's  asleep',  an'  aftherward  it  works  fur 
him  as  a  night  watchman.  On-  other  men's  dures 
it  knocks  an'  runs  away;  an'  on  the  dures  of 
other  men  it  knocks,  an'  whin  they  come  out  it 
hits  thim  over  the  head  with  an  ax.  But  eviry 
wan  has  an-  opporchunity.  So  yez  had  better 
kape  your  eye  skinned  an'  nab  it  before  it  shlips 
by  an'  is  lost  forevir." 

The  names  on  a  big  magazine's  table  of  con- 
tents represent  many  varieties  of  the  vicissitudes 
of  fortune,  but  the  prevailing  type  is  not  a  lucky 
genius,  one  for  whom  Opporchunity  is  working 
as  a  night  watchman.  The  type  is  a  firm-jawed 
plugger.  His  nose  is  keen  for  "good  stories," 
his  eye  equally  alert  to  dodge  the  ax  or  to  nab 
Opporchunity's  fleeting  coat-tails. 


CHAPTER   II 

HOW   TO   PREPARE  A   MANUSCRIPT 

IF  you  have  a  real  "story"  up  your  sleeve  and 
know  how  to  word  it  in  passable  English, 
the  next  thing  to  learn  is  the  way  to  prepare  a 
manuscript  in  professional  form  for  marketing. 
In  the  non-fiction  writer's  workshop  only  two 
machines  are  essential  to  efficiency  and  economy. 
The  first  of  these,  and  absolutely  indispensable, 
is  a  typewriter.  The  sooner  you  learn  to  type 
your  manuscripts,  the  better  for  your  future 
and  your  pocketbook. 

It  is  folly  to  submit  contributions  in  hand- 
writing to  a  busy  editor  who  has  to  read  through 
a  bushel  of  manuscripts  a  day.  The  more  legible 
the  manuscript,  the  better  are  your  chances  to 
win  a  fair  reading.  I  will  go  further,  and  declare 
that  a  manuscript  which  has  all  the  earmarks  of 
being  by  a  professional  is  not  only  more  care- 
fully read,  but  also  is  likely  to  be  treated  with 
more  consideration  when  a  decision  is  to  be  made 
upon  its  value  to  the  publisher  in  dollars  and 
cents.  Put  yourself  in  the  editor's  place  and 
10 


HOW  TO  PREPARE  A  MANUSCRIPT    11 

you  will  quickly  enough  grasp  the  psychology 
of  this. 

The  editor  knows  that  no  professional  submits 
manuscripts  in  handwriting,  that  no  professional 
writes  upon  both  sides  of  the  sheet,  and  that 
no  professional  omits  to  enclose  an  addressed 
stamped  envelope  in  which  to  return  the  manu- 
script to  its  author  if  it  proves  unavailable  for 
the  magazine's  use.  Why  brand  yourself  as  a 
novice  even  before  the  manuscript  reader  has 
seen  your  first  sentence?  Remember  you  are 
competing  for  editorial  attention  against  a  whole 
bushel  of  other  manuscripts.  The  girl  who  opens 
the  magazine's  mail  may  be  tempted  to  cast  your 
contribution  into  the  rejection  basket  on  general 
principles,  if  you  are  foolish  enough  to  get  away 
to  such  a  poor  start.  What  an  ignominious  end 
to  your  literary  adventure  is  this — and  all  be- 
cause you  were  careless,  or  didn't  know  any 
better ! 

The  writer  who  really  means  business  will  not 
neglect  in  any  detail  the-  psychology  of  making 
his  manuscript  invite  a  thorough  reading.  It 
may  be  bad  form  to  accept  a  dinner  invitation 
in  typewriting,  but  it  is  infinitely  worse  form  to 
fail  to  typewrite  an  invitation  to  editorial  eyes 
to  buy  your  manuscript.  Good  form  also  dic- 
tates that  the  first  page  of  your  contribution 
should  bear  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner  of  the 


12    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

sheet  your  name,  upon  the  first  line;  the  street 
address,  on  the  second;  the  town  and  state,  on 
the  third.  In  the  upper  right  hand  corner  should 
be  set  down  an  estimate  of  the  number  of  words 
contained  in  the  manuscript. 

Leave  a  blank  down  to  the  middle* of  the  page. 
There,  in  capitals,  write  the  title  of  the  article; 
then  drop  down  a  few  lines  and  type  your  pen 
name  (if  you  use  one)  or  whatever  version  of 
your  signature  that  you  wish  to  have  appear 
above  the  article  when  it  comes  out  in  print. 
Drop  down  a  few  more  lines  before  you  begin 
with  the  text,  and  indent  about  an  inch  for  the 
beginning  of  each  paragraph.  Here  is  a  model 
for  your  guidance: 

Frank  H.  Jones,      about  3000 
2416  Front  St.,        words 
Oswego,  Ohio 

CAMPING  ON  INDIAN  CREEK 

By 
Frank  Henry  Jones 

It  took  us  two  minutes  by  the 
clock  to  pack  everything  we  need- 
ed— and  more,  for  the  camper-out 
always  takes  twice  as  much  junk 
as  he  can  use.  All  that  was  left 
to  do  after  that  etc., 


HOW  TO  PREPARE  A  MANUSCRIPT    13 

There  are  sound  reasons  for  all  this.  The 
first  is  that,  likely  enough,  your  title  may  not 
altogether  suit  the  editor,  and  he  will  require 
some  of  the  white  space  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
page  for  a  revised  version.  Also,  he  will  need 
some  space  upon  which  to  pencil  his  directions 
to  the  printers  about  how  to  set  the  type. 

Double  space  your  lines.  If  you  leave  no 
room  between  lines,  you  make  it  extremely  diffi- 
cult for  the  editor  to  write  in  any  corrections  in 
the  text.  Moreover,  a  solid  mass  of  single- 
spaced  typewriting  is  much  harder  to  read  than 
material  that  is  double-spaced. 

Use  good  white  paper,  of  ordinary  letter  size, 
eight  by  eleven  inches,  and  leave  a  margin  of 
about  an  inch  on  either  side  of  the  text  and  at 
both  top  and  bottom.  Number  each  page.  Don't 
write  your  "copy"  with  a  ribbon  which  is  too 
worn  to  be  bright;  and,  while  you  are  about  it, 
clean  up  those  letters  on  the  typebars  that  have 
a  tendency  to  fill  up  with  ink  and  dust.  You 
may  have  noticed,  for  example,  that  "a,"  "e," 
"o,"  "s,"  "m,"  and  "w"  are  not  always  clear-cut 
upon  the  page. 

You  are  doing  all  this  to  make  the  reading 
of  your  contribution  as  easy  a  task  as  possible 
from  the  purely  physical  side.  You  are  simply 
using  a  little  common  sense  in  the  process  of 
addressing  yourself  to  the  favorable  attention  of 


14    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

a  force  of  extremely  busy  persons  who  are  paid 
to  "wade  through"  a  formidable  stack  of  mail. 

If  you  have  an  overpowering  distaste  for  do- 
ing your  own  typewriting,  you  may  hire  a  typist 
to  turn  your  handwritten  "copy"  into  something 
easier  to  read.  This  procedure,  however,  may 
prove  to  be  rather  too  costly  for  a  beginner's 
purse.  It  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to  learn  to  oper- 
ate a  machine  yourself.  At  first  the  task  may 
seem  rather  a  tough  one,  but  even  after  so  short 
a  time  as  a  month  of  practice  you  are  likely  to 
be  surprised  at  the  progress  you  will  make.  Be- 
fore long  you  will  be  able  to  write  much  faster 
upon  a  machine  than  with  a  pencil  or  a  pen. 

The  danger  then  lies  in  a  temptation  to  haste 
and  carelessness.  This  is  one  reason  why  many 
fastidious  magazine  writers  always  do  the  first 
draft  of  an  article  in  longhand  and  turn  to  the 
typewriter  only  when  they  are  ready  to  set  down 
the  final  version.  Temperament  and  habit  should 
decide  the  matter.  Nearly  any  one  can  learn 
to  compose  newspaper  "copy"  at  the  keyboard, 
but  not  so  many  of  us  dare  attempt  to  do  maga- 
zine articles  at  the  same  high  rate  of  speed. 
Particularly  does  this  hold  true  of  the  first  page 
of  a  magazine  manuscript  The  opening  para- 
graph of  such  a  manuscript  is  likely  to  make  a 
much  more  exacting  demand  upon  the  writer's 
skill  than  the  "lead"  of  a  newspaper  "story." 


HOW  TO  PREPARE  A  MANUSCRIPT    15 

All  that  the  newspaper  usually  demands  is  that 
the  reporter  cram  the  gist  of  his  facts  into  the 
first  few  sentences.  The  magazine  insists  that 
the  first  paragraph  of  a  manuscript  not  only 
catch  attention  but  also  sound  the  keynote  of 
many  words  to  follow,  for  the  "punch"  of  the 
magazine  story  is  more  often  near  the  end  of 
the  article  than  the  beginning. 

Though  the  technique  of  newspaper  and  maga- 
zine writing  may  differ  on  this  matter  of  the 
"lead,"  do  not  make  the  mistake  of  supposing 
that  the  magazine  introduction  need  not  be  just 
as  chock  full  of  interest  as  the  opening  of  a 
newspaper  "story."  You  are  no  longer  under 
any  compulsion,  when  you  write  for  the  maga- 
zines, to  cram  the  meat  of  the  story  into  the 
first  sentence,  but  one  thing  you  must  do — you 
must  rouse  the  reader  to  sit  up  and  listen.  You 
can  well  afford  to  spend  any  amount  of  effort 
upon  that  opening  paragraph.  Write  your  lead 
a  dozen  times,  a  hundred  times,  if  necessary, 
until  you  make  it  rivet  the  attention. 


CHAPTER  III 

HOW  TO  TAKE  PHOTOGRAPHS 

AFTER  he  has  bought  or  rented  a  typewriter, 
the  would-be  free  lance  in  the  non-fiction 
field  has  his  workshop  only  half  equipped.  One 
more  machine  is  an  urgent  necessity.  Get  a 
camera. 

Few  of  our  modern  American  newspapers  and 
magazines  are  published  without  pictures;  so 
anybody  ought  to  be  able  to  perceive  how  absurd 
it  is  to  submit  an  unillustrated  manuscript  to 
an  illustrated  periodical.  Good  photographs 
have  won  a  market  for  many  a  manuscript  that 
scarcely  would  have  been  given  a  reading  if  it 
had  arrived  without  interesting  pictures;  and 
many  a  well-written  article  has  been  reluctantly 
returned  by  the  editor  because  no  photographs 
were  available  to  illustrate  it. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  dodge  this  issue. 
Just  as  you  can  hire  a  typist  to  put  your  manu- 
script into  legible  form,  you  can  pay  a  profes- 
sional photographer  to  accompany  you  wherever 
you  go  and  take  the  illustrations  for  your  text 
16 


HOW  TO  TAKE  PHOTOGRAPHS     17 

But  the  same  vital  objection  holds  here  as  in 
the  case  of  the  professional  typist — the  costs  will 
cut  heavily  into  your  profits.  With  a  little  prac- 
tice you  can  learn  to  do  the  work  yourself.  After 
that,  you  can  operate  at  a  small  fraction  of  the 
expense  of  hiring  a  professional. 

Your  work  soon  enough  will  be  of  as  high  a 
quality  as  anything  that  the  average  commercial 
photographer  can  produce,  and,  better  yet,  it 
will  not  have  any  flat  and  stale  commercial  flavor 
about  it.  Nothing  is  more  static  and  banal  than 
the  composition  that  the  ordinary  professional 
will  produce  if  you  fail  to  prevent  him  from 
having  his  own  way.  Ten  to  one,  all  the  lower 
half  of  the  picture  will  be  empty  foreground, 
and  not  a  living  creature  will  appear  in  the  en- 
tire field  of  vision. 

It  cost  the  present  writer  upward  of  $150  to 
discover  this  fact.  Then  he  bought  a  thirty 
dollar  postcard  kodak  and  a  five  dollar  tripod 
and  told  the  whole  tribe  of  professionals  to  go 
to  blazes.  The  only  time  since  then  that  he  has 
ever  had  to  hire  commercial  aid  was  when  he 
had  to  have  heavy  flashlights  made  of  large 
rooms. 

So  save  yourself  money  now,  instead  of  even- 
tually. Even  if  thirty  dollars  takes  your  last 
nickel,  don't  hesitate.  For  a  beginning,  if  you 
are  inexperienced  in  photography,  rent  a  cheap 


18    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

machine  with  which  to  practice — a  simple  "snap- 
shot box"  with  no  adjustments  on  it  will  do 
while  you  are  picking  up  the  first  inklings  of 
how  to  compose  a  picture  and  of  how  much  light 
is  required  for  different  classes  of  subjects. 

After  you  have  practiced  with  this  for  a 
while,  go  out  and  buy  a  folding  kodak.  If  you 
have  the  journalistic  eye  for  what  is  picturesque 
and  newsy  the  camera  will  quickly  return  100 
per  cent,  upon  the  investment. 

The  one  great  difficulty  for  the  beginner  in 
photography  is  that  he  does  not  know  how  to 
"time"  the  exposure  of  a  picture.  The  books 
on  photography  are  all  too  technical.  They  dis- 
cuss chemicals  and  printing  papers  and  all  the 
finer  shadings  of  processes  carried  on  in  labora- 
tories under  a  ruby  light.  But  what  the  novice 
longs  to  know  is  simply  how  to  take  pictures — 
what  exposure  to  allow  for  a  portrait,  what  for 
a  street  scene,  what  for  a  panorama.  He  usually 
fails  to  give  the  portrait  enough  light,  and  he 
gives  the  panorama  too  much.  He  is  willing  to 
allow  a  professional  finisher  to  do  his  developing 
and  printing.  What  the  beginner  wants  to  read 
is  a  chapter  on  exposure.  As  an  operator,  he 
is  seeking  for  a  rule  of  how  and  some  examples 
of  its  application. 

If  you  lack  a  simple  working  theory,  here  is 
one  now,  in  primer  terms: 


HOW  TO  TAKE  PHOTOGRAPHS     19 

The  closer  the  object  which  you  wish  to  pho- 
tograph is  to  your  lens,  the  more  light  it  requires ; 
the  farther  away  it  is,  the  less  light  it  requires. 

This  may  sound  somewhat  unreasonable,  but 
that  is.  how  a  camera  works.  A  portrait  head, 
or  anything  else  that  must  be  brought  to  within 
a  few  feet  of  the  lens,  requires  the  greatest  width 
of  shutter  aperture  (or,  what  comes  to  the  same 
thing,  the  longest  exposure) ;  and  a  far-away 
mountain  peak  or  a  cloud  requires  the  smallest 
aperture  (or  the  shortest  exposure). 

To  understand  thoroughly  what  this  means, 
take  off  the  back  of  your  kodak  and  have  a  look 
at  how  the  wheels  go  round.  Set  the  pointer  of 
the  time  dial  on  the  face  of  your  camera  at  "T" 
(it  means  "time  exposure")  and  then  press  the 
bulb  (or  push  the  lever)  which  opens  the  shutter. 
Looking  through  the  back  of  your  camera,  make 
the  light  come  through  the  largest  width  of  the 
lens.  You  can  do  this  by  pushing  the  other 
pointer  on  the  face  of  your  kodak  to  the  extreme 
left  of  its  scale — the  lowest  number  indicated.  On 
a  kodak  with  a  "U.  S."  scale  this  number  is  "4." 

You  will  see  now  that  the  light  is  coming 
through  a  hole  nearly  an  inch  in  diameter.  If  it 
were  a  bright  day  you  could  take  portrait  heads 
outdoors  through  this  sized  aperture  with  an  ex- 
posure of  one  twenty-fifth  of  a  second. 

Using  this  same  amount  of  time,  the  size  of 


20    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

the  shutter  aperture  should  be  reduced  to  a  mere 
pin  hole  of  light  to  make  a  proper  exposure  for 
far-away  mountain  tops,  clouds,  or  boats  in  the 
open  sea. 

Suppose  we  make  our  problem  as  simple  as 
possible  by  leaving  the  timer  at  one  twenty-fifth 
of  a  second  for  all  classes  of  subjects.  We  will 
vary  only  the  size  of  the  hole  through  which  the 
light  is  to  enter. 

For  a  close-up,  a  portrait  head,  we  operate 
with  the  light  coming  through  the  full  width  of 
the  lens. 

Now  push  to  the  right  one  notch  the  pointer 
which  reduces  the  size  of  the  hole.  This  makes 
the  light  come  through  a  smaller  diameter,  which 
on  a  "U.  S."  scale  will  be  marked  "8."  Only 
half  as  much  light  is  coming  through  now  as 
before.  This  is  the  stop  at  which  to  take  full 
length  figures  and  many  other  views  in  which 
the  foreground  is  unusually  prominent.  Build- 
ings which  are  not  light  in  color  should  also  be 
taken  with  this  stop.  In  general,  it  is  for  heavy 
foregrounds. 

Push  the  pointer  on  to  "16."  If  your  scale 
is  "U.  S."  you  will  notice  that  this  is  midway 
between  the  largest  and  the  smallest  stops.  It 
is  the  happy  medium  stop  at  which,  on  bright 
days,  you  can  properly  expose  for  the  great  ma- 
jority of  your  subjects,  those  hundreds  of  scenes 


HOW  TO  TAKE  PHOTOGRAPHS     21 

not  close  enough  to  the  lens  to  be  classified  as 
"heavy  foregrounds"  nor  yet  far  enough  away 
to  be  panoramas.  Buildings  which  are  light  in 
color  and  sunny  street  scenes  fall  into  this  divi- 
sion of  exposures.  When  in  doubt,  take  it  at 
one  twenty-fifth  of  a  second  with  stop  "16." 
You  can't  miss  it  far,  one  way  or  another. 

Push  the  pointer  on  to  "32"  and  the  object  to 
be  photographed  ought  to  be  at  some  distance 
away.  This  is  the  stop  for  the  open  road  and 
the  sunlit  fields — anything  between  an  "average 
view"  and  a  "panorama." 

At  "64"  the  scale  is  set  for  the  most  distant 
of  land  views,  beach  scenes  and  boats  in  the 
middle  distance  off-shore.  You  will  learn  by 
costly  overexposures  that  water  views  require 
much  less  light  than  landscapes.  Photographers 
have  an  axiom  that  "water  is  as  bright  as  the 
sky  itself."  So  at  "64,"  which  is  proper  expo- 
sure for  the  most  distant  of  land  panoramas, 
you  begin  to  take  waterscapes. 

That  tiniest  pin  hole  of  a  stop,  at  the  extreme 
right  of  the  scale,  is  never  to  be  used  except 
for  such  subjects  as  the  open  sea  and  snow- 
capped mountain  tops. 

There  you  have  the  theory.  Apply  it  with 
common  sense  and  you  will  meet  with  few  fail- 
ures. You  scarcely  need  to  be  cautioned  that  if 
an  object  is  dark  in  color  it  will  require  propor- 


22    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

tionately  more  exposure  than  the  same  object 
if  it  is  white.  Through-  various  weathers  and 
seasons,  experience  will  keep  teaching  you  how 
to  adapt  the  rule  to  changing  conditions  of  light. 
Certain  handbooks  and  exposure  meters  will  be 
of  service  while  you  are  learning  the  classifica- 
tions of  subjects. 

You  have  been  told  how  the  rule  works.  Press 
the  "T"  bulb  again  to  click  your  shutter  shut 
and  prepare  to  set  out  on-,  a  picture  taking  excur- 
sion. Set  the  time  scale,  at  one  twenty-fifth  of  a 
second,  and  leave  it  there.  Load  up  a  film.  Re- 
place the  back  of  the'  camera.  Take  along  a 
tripod.  Don't  forget  that  tripod!  With  that 
you  insure  yourself  against  getting  your  com- 
position askew,  or  losing  a  good  picture  on  ac- 
count of  a  shaky  hand. 

Suppose  the  expedition  is  gunning  somewhere 
in  the  backwoods*  Down  the  stony  winding 
road  saunters  one  of  the  natives  in  a  two-piece 
suit.  Overalls  and  a  hickory  shirt  constitute  his 
entire  outfit.  He  grows  a  beard  to  save  himself 
the  labor  of  shaving.  His  leathery  feet  scarcely 
feel  the  sharp  stones  of  the  highway.  Here  is 
a  picture  worth  preserving,  for  the  "cracker" 
type  is  becoming  a  rarity,  almost  extinct.  Set 
your  pointer  at  "8"  and  take  his  full  length.  If 
you  wish  a  close-up  of  his  head,  set  the  pointer 
at  "4." 


HOW  TO  TAKE  PHOTOGRAPHS     23 

A  little  farther  and  the  road  plunges  into  a 
shady  valley.  Under  the  trees  ahead  is  a  log 
cabin,  dappled  with  the  sunlight  and  the  shade 
of  dancing  leaves.  Use  your  judgment  about 
whether  such  a  scene  requires  "8"  or  "4."  If 
in  doubt,  use  "4,"  for  the  danger  here  is  that 
you  may  under-expose. 

In  a  clearing  where  the  shade  of  the  trees  has 
little  effect,  stands  an  old  water  power  mill.  It 
is  simply  an  "average  view,"  and  you-  can  safely 
snap  it  with  a  "16"  stop. 

The  friendly  razorback  hogs  under  the  mail 
hack  make  a  picture  with  a  heavy  foreground. 
They  fall  into  the  "8"  classification — half  in 
shade,  half  in  sunlight. 

The  road  leads  us  at  last  to  a  river.  An  old- 
fashioned  ferry  boat  is  making  a  crossing  in  mid- 
stream. From  the  hilltop  where  we  first  survey 
it  the  scene  is  a  landscape,  distant,  view,  and 
can  be  taken  with  a  "32."  But  when  you  get 
down  to  the  water's  edge  and  shoot  across  the 
shining  river,  beware  of  overexposure.  Stop 
down  another  notch. 

Do  you  see  now  how  the  theory  works  ?  Give 
it  a  fair  trial  and  you  will  agree  that  taking 
pictures — the  mere  taking,  with  no  bothering  your 
head  about  developing,  printing,  toning  and  the 
like — is  a  matter  no  more  baffling  than  the  sim- 
ple art  of  learning  to  punch  the  letters  on  the 


24    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

keyboard  of  a  typewriter.  Keep  at  it,  never 
neglecting  an  opportunity  to  practice.  Keep  ex- 
perimenting, until  you  can  fare  forth  in  any  sort 
of  weather  and  know  that  you  will  be  able  to 
bring  back  something  printable  upon  your  film 
or  plate.  If  the  day  is  not  bright,  shove  your 
timer  over  to  one-tenth  of  a  second,  or  to  one- 
fifth. 

Certain  experts  in  photography  will  bitterly 
deride  this  advice  to  keep  the  time  set  at  one 
twenty-fifth  of  a  second  and  to  vary  nothing  but 
the  size  of  the-  lens  aperture.  They  will  point 
out — and  be  quite  right  about  it — that  the  smaller 
the  aperture  the  sharper  the  image,  and  that  a 
more  professional  method  of  procedure  is  to 
vary  the  timing  so  as  to  take  all  pictures  with 
small  stops. 

To  which  I  can  only  answer  that  this  is  all 
well  enough  for  the  trained  photographer  and 
that  in  these  days  of  my  semi-professionalism  I 
practice  that  same  sort  of  thing  myself.  But  in 
the  beginning  I  was  duly  grateful  to  the  man 
who  gave  me  the  golden,  maxim  of  "the  closer 
the  object,  the  larger  the  stop;  the  more  distant 
the  object,  the  smaller  the  stop" — a  piece  of  ad- 
vice which  enabled  a  novice,  with  only  one  sim- 
ple adjustment  to  worry  about,  to  take  a  passably 
sharp,  properly  exposed  picture.  So  -I  pass  the 
word  along  to  you  for  whatever  it  may  be  worth. 


CHAPTER    IV 

FINDING    A    MARKET 

A  NOSE  for  news,  some  perseverance,  a  type- 
writer and  a  camera  have  thus  far  been 
listed  as  the  equipment  most  essential  to  suc- 
cess for  a  writer  of  non-fiction  who  sets  out  to 
trade  in  the  periodical  market  as  a  free  lance. 
Rather  brief  mention  has  been  made  of  the  mat- 
ter of  literary  style.  This  is  not  because  the 
writer  of  this  book  lacks  reverence  for  literary 
craftsmanship.  It  is  simply  because,  with  the 
facts  staring  him  in  the  face,  he  must  set  down 
his  conviction  that  a  polished  style  is  not  a  mat- 
ter of  tremendous  importance  to  the  average 
editor  of  the  average  American  periodical. 

Journalists  so  clumsy  that,  in  the  graphic 
phrase  of  a  short  grass  poet,  "they  seem  to  write 
with  their  feet,"  sell  manuscripts  with  clock-like 
regularity  to  first-class  markets.  The  magazines, 
like  the  newspapers,  employ  "re-write  men"  to 
take  crude  manuscripts  to  pieces,  rebuild  them 
and  give  them  a  presentable  polish.  The  matter 
of  prime  importance  to  most  of  our  American 
25 


26    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

editors  is  an  article's  content  in  the  way  of  vital 
facts  and  "human  interest."  Upon  the  matter 
of  style  the  typical  editor  appears  to  take  Mat- 
thew Arnold's  words  quite  literally: 

"People  think  that  I  can  teach  them  style. 
What  stuff  it  all  is!  Have  something  to  say, 
and  say  it  as  clearly  as  you  can.  That  is  the 
only  secret  of  style." 

No  embittered  collector  of  rejection  slips  will 
believe  me  when  I  declare  that  the  demand  for 
worth-while  articles  always  exceeds  the  supply 
in  American  magazine  markets.  None  the  less 
it  is  true,  as  every  editor  knows  to  his  constant 
sorrow.  The  appetite  of  our  hundreds  of  pe- 
riodicals for  real  "stories"  never  has  been  satis- 
fied. The  menu  has  to  be  filled  out  with  a  re- 
grettable proportion  of  bran  and  ersatz. 

The  fact  that  a  manuscript  lacks  all  charm  of 
style  will  not  blast  its  chances  of  acceptance  if 
the  "story"  is  all  there  and  is  typed  into  a  pre- 
sentable appearance  and  illustrated  with  inter- 
esting photographs.  A  good  style  will  enhance 
the  manuscript's  value,  but  want  of  verbal  skill 
rarely  will  prove  a  fatal  blemish.  Not  so  long 
as  there  are  "re- write  men"  around  the  shop! 

It  is  not  a  lack  of  artistry  that  administers 
the  most  numerous  defeats  to  the  novice  free 
lance.  It  is  a  lack  of  market  judgment.  When 
he  has  completed  his  manuscript  he  sits  down 


FINDING  A  MARKET  27 

and  hopefully  mails  it  out  to  the  first  market  that 
strikes  his  fancy.  He  shoots  into  the  dark,  trust- 
ing to  luck. 

A  huge  army  of  disappointed  scribblers  have 
followed  that  haphazard  plan  of  battle.  They 
would  know  better  than  to  try  to  market  crates 
of  eggs  to  a  shoe  store,  but  they  see  nothing 
equally  absurd  in  shipping  a  popular  science  ar- 
ticle to  the  Atlantic  Monthly  or  an  "uplift"  essay 
to  the  Smart  Set.  They  paper  their  walls  with 
rejection  slips,  fill  up  a  trunk  with  returned  manu- 
scripts and  pose  before  their  sympathetic  friends 
as  martyrs. 

Many  of  these  defeated  writers  have  nose- 
sense  for  what  is  of  national  interest.  They 
write  well,  and  they  take  the  necessary  pains 
to  make  their  manuscripts  presentable  in  appear- 
ance. If  they  only  knew  enough  to  offer  their 
contributions  to  suitable  markets,  they  soon 
would  be  scoring  successes.  What  they  can't 
get  into  their  heads  is  that  the  names  in  an  index 
of  periodicals  represent  needs  as  widely  varied 
as  the  names  in  a  city  directory. 

Take,  for  example,  five  of  our  leading  week- 
lies :  The  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Collier's,  Les- 
lie's, The  Outlook  and  The  Independent.  They 
all  use  articles  of  more  or  less  timeliness,  but 
beyond  this  one  similarity  they  are  no  more  alike 
in  character  than  an  American,  an  Irishman,  an 


28    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

Englishman,  a  Welshman  and  a  Scot.  Your 
burning  hot  news  "story"  which  The  Saturday 
Evening  Post  turned  down  may  have  been  re- 
jected because  the  huge  circulation  of  the  Post 
necessitates  that  its  "copy"  go  to  press  six  or 
seven  weeks  before  it  appears  upon  the  news- 
stands. You  should  have  tried  The  Indepen- 
dent, which  makes  a  specialty  of  getting  hot  stuff 
into  circulation  before  it  has  time  to  cool.  Your 
interview  with  a  big  man  of  Wall  Street  which 
was  returned  by  The  Outlook  might  find  a  warm 
welcome  at  Leslie's.  A  character  sketch  of  the 
Democratic  candidate  for  President  might  not 
please  Leslie's  in  the  least,  but  would  fetch  a 
good  price  from  Collier's.  Your  article  on  the 
Prairie  Poets  might  be  rejected  by  three  other 
weeklies,  but  prove  quite  acceptable  to  The  Out- 
look. 

When  you  have  completed  a  manuscript,  for- 
get the  inspiration  that  went  into  its  writing 
and  give  cold  and  sober  second  thought  to  this 
matter  of  marketing.  The  Outlook  might  have 
bought  the  article  that  Collier's  rejected.  Col- 
lier's might  have  bought  the  one  that  The  Out- 
look rejected.  Every  experienced  writer  will 
tell  you  that  this  sort  of  thing  happens  every 
day. 

Don't  snort  in  disdain  because  the  editor  of 


FINDING  A  MARKET  29 

The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  rejects  a  contribution 
on  economics.  Maybe  the  lady's  husband  would 
like  it.  So  try  it  on  The  World's  Work,  or  Les- 
lie's or  System.  It  might  win  you  a  place  of 
honor,  with  your  name  blazoned  on  the  cover. 

Too  many  discouraged  novices  believe  that 
the  bromide  of  the  rejection  slip— "rejection  im- 
plies no  lack  of  merit" — is  simply  a  piece  of 
sarcasm.  It  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  In  tens  of 
thousands  of  instances  it  is  a  solemn  fact.  Don't 
sulk  and  berate  the  editors  who  return  your 
manuscript,  but  carefully  read  the  contribution 
again,  trying  to  forget  for  the  moment  that  it  is 
one  of  your  own  precious  "brain  children." 
Cold-bloodedly  size  it  up  as  something  to  sell. 
Then  you  may  perceive  that  you  have  been  try- 
ing to  market  a  crate  of  eggs  at  a  shoe  store. 
Eggs  are  none  the  less  precious  on  that  account. 
Try  again — applying  this  time  to  a  grocer.  If 
he  doesn't  buy,  it  will  be  because  he  already  has 
all  the  eggs  on  hand  that  he  needs.  In  that 
event,  look  up  the  addresses  of  some  more 
grocers. 

The  same  common  sense  principles  apply  in 
selling  manuscripts  to  the  magazines  and  news- 
papers as  in  marketing  any  other  kind  of  pro- 
duce. The  top  prices  go  to  the  fellow  who  de- 
livers his  goods  fresh  and  in  good  order  to  buy- 


30    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

ers  who  stand  in  need  of  his  particular  sort  of 
staple.  Composing  a  manuscript  may  be  art,  but 
selling  it  is  business. 

Naturally,  it  requires  practice  to  become  ex- 
pert in  picking  topics  of  wide  enough  appeal  to 
interest  the  public  which  reads  magazines  of  na- 
tional circulation.  Every  beginner,  except  an 
inspired  genius,  is  likely  to  be  oppressed  with  a 
sense  of  hopelessness  when  he  is  making  his 
first  desperate  attempts  to  "break  in."  The* 
writer  can  testify  feelingly  on  this  point  from 
his  own  experience.  Kansas  City  was  then  my 
base  of  operations,  and  it  seemed  as  if  I  never 
possibly  could  find  anything  in  that  far  inland 
locality  worthy  of  nation-wide  attention.  Every- 
thing I  wrote  bounced  back  with  a  printed  re- 
jection slip. 

At  last,  however,  I  discovered  a  "story"  that 
appeared  to  be  of  undeniable  national  appeal. 
Missouri,  for  the  first  time  in  thirty-six  years, 
had  elected  a  Republican  governor.  I  decided 
that  the  surest  market  for  this  would  be  a  maga- 
zine dealing  with  personality  sketches.  If  a 
magazine  of  that  type  would  not  buy  the  "story," 
I  was  willing  to  own  myself  whipped. 

On  the  afternoon  when  we  were  all  sure  that 
Herbert  Hadley  had  won,  I  begged  a  big  litho- 
graphed portrait  of  the  governor-elect  from  a 
cigar  store  man  who  had  displayed  it  promi- 


FINDING  A  MARKET  31 

nently  in  his  front  window.  There  was  no  time, 
then,  to  search  for  a  photograph.  A  thrill  of 
conviction  pervaded  me  that  at  last  my  fingers 
were  on  a  "story"  that  no  magazine  editor,  how- 
ever much  he  might  hate  to  recognize  the  worth 
of  new  authors,  could  afford  to  reject. 

The  newspaper  office  files  of  clippings  gave 
me  all  the  information  necessary  for  a  brief  biog- 
raphy; the  lithograph  should  serve  for  an  illus- 
tration. By  midnight  that  Irresistible  Wedge 
for  entering  the  magazines  was  in  the  mails. 
.  .  .  Sure  enough,  the  editors  of  Human  Life 
bought  it.  And,  by  some  miracle  of  speed  in 
magazine  making  never  explained  to  this  day, 
they  printed  it  in  their  next  month's  issue. 

The  moral  of  this  was  obvious — that  in  the 
proper  market  a  real  "story^"  even  though  it  be 
somewhat  hastily  written,  will  receive  a  sincere 
welcome.  The  week  after  this  Irresistible  Wedge 
appeared  in  print  I  threw  up  my  'job  as  a  re- 
porter and  dived  off  of  the  springboard  into 
free  lancing.  A  small  bank  account  gave  me  as- 
surance that  there  was  no  immediate  peril  of 
starving,  and  I  wisely  kept  a  connection  with  the 
local  newspaper.  In  case  disaster  overtook  me, 
I  knew  where  I  could  find  a  job  again. 


CHAPTER   V 
A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES 

WHAT  happened  to  me  in  making  a  begin- 
ning as  a  free  lance  producer  of  non-fic- 
tion might  happen  to  any  one  else  of  an  equal 
amount  of  inexperience.  My  home  town  had 
no  professional  magazine  writer  to  whom  I  could 
turn  for  advice;  and  though  I  devoured  scores 
of  books  about  writing,  they  were  chiefly  con- 
cerned either  with  the  newspaper  business  or 
with  the  technique  of  fiction,  and  they  all  failed 
to  get  down  to  brass  tacks  about  my  own  press- 
ing problem,  which  was  how  to  write  and  sell 
magazine  articles.  I  was  not  seeking  any  more 
ABC  advice  about  newspaper  "stories,"  nor  did 
I  feel  the  least  urge  toward  producing  fiction. 
I  thirsted  to  find  out  how  to  prepare  and  mar- 
ket a  manuscript  to  The  Saturday  Evening  Post 
or  Collier's,  but  the  books  in  the  public  library 
were  all  about  the  short  story  and  the  novel, 
Sunday  "features,"  the  evolution  of  the  printing 
press  or  the  adventures  of  a  sob  sister  on  an  aft- 
ernoon daily. 

32 


A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES    33 

So  I  had  to  go  out  and  get  my  education  as  a 
magazine  writer  in  a  school  of  tough  experi- 
ences. A  few  of  these  experiences  are  here  re- 
corded, in  the  hope  that  some  of  the  lessons  that 
were  enforced  upon  me  may  be  of  help  to  other 
beginners. 

The  immediate  results  of  my  plunge  into  free 
lancing  were: 

JANUARY— not  one  cent. 

FEBRUARY— $50.46.  Seven  dollars  of  this 
was  for  the  magazine  article.  No  other  maga- 
zine acceptances  had  followed  the  Wedge.  I 
had  not  yet  caught  the  national  viewpoint,  nor 
had  I  picked  up  much  practical  information  about 
the  magaeine  markets. 

By  March  it  was  becoming  painfully  evident 
that  a  fledgling  free  lance  should,  if  he  is  wise, 
depend  for  a  while  upon  a  local  newspaper  for 
the  larger  part  of  his  income.  In  a  school  of 
hard  knocks  I  learned  to  sell  "stones"  of  purely 
local  interest  to  the  Kansas  City  market,  topics 
of  state-wide  interest  to  the  St.  Louis  Sunday 
editors,  and  contributions  whose  appeal  was  as 
wide  as  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  newspapers  in 
Chicago  and  New  York. 

Also  I  learned  that  if  the  free  lance  hopes  to 
make  any  of  these  markets  take  a  lively  interest 
in  him,  he  will  introduce  his  manuscripts  with 
interesting  photographs.  I  rented  a  little  black 


34    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

cube  of  a  camera  for  twenty-five  cents  a  day.  It 
had  a  universal  focus  and  nothing  to  bother 
about  in  the  way  of  adjustments.  To  operate 
it  you  peeked  into  the  range  finder,  then  threw  a 
lever.  Its  lens  was  so  slow  that  no  pictures 
could  be  taken  with  it  except  in  bright  sunlight. 

I  wrote  about  motor  cars,  willow  farms,  celeb- 
rities, freaks  of  nature  in  the  city  parks,  catfish 
and  junk  heaps — anything  of  which  I  could  snap 
interesting  photographs  and  find  enough  text  to 
"carry"  the  picture. 

March  saw  me  earn  $126.00  by  doing  assign- 
ments for  the  city  editor  in  the  mornings  and 
"stories"  at  space  rates  in  the  afternoons  for 
the  Sunday  section.  At  night  I  plugged  away 
at  manuscripts  Jiope  fully  intended  for  national 
periodicals.  But  not  until  late  in  September  did 
I  "land"  in  a  big  magazine.  Then — the  thrill 
that  comes  once  in  a  lifetime — I  sold  an  article 
to  Collier's.  It  required  tremendous  energy  to 
keep  up  such  a  pace,  but  there  was  sweet  com- 
fort in  the  thought  that,  technically  at  least,  I 
was  now  my  own  boss.  Gradually,  I  broke  away 
from  assignment  work  until  I  was  free  to  write 
what  I  liked  and  to  go  where  I  pleased. 

From  finding  material  in  the  city,  I  adventured 
into  some  of  the  near-by  towns  in  Missouri  and 
Kansas,  and  soon  was  arguing  a  theory  that  in 
every  small  town  the  local  correspondents  of  big 


A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES    35 

city  newspapers  are  constantly  overlooking  pay 
streaks  of  good  "feature  stories."  Usually  I 
would  start  out  with  twenty-five  dollars  and 
keep  moving  until  I  went  broke.  A  railway  jour- 
ney no  longer  meant,  as  in  reportorial  days,  a 
banquet  in  the  dining-car  and  a  chair  on  the  ob- 
servation platform,  charged  up  on  an  expense 
account.  Often  enough  I  slept  in  a  day  coach, 
my  head  pillowed  on  a  kodak  wrapped  in  a 
sweater  vest.  The  elevation  was  just  right  for 
a  pillow;  and  at  the  same  time  the  traveler  was 
insured  against  theft  of  his  most  precious  pos- 
session, a  brand  new  folding  camera  of  post  card 
size. 

For  the  little  snapshot  box  soon  showed  its 
weakness  in  an  emergency  and  had  to  be  re- 
placed with  a  better  machine  which  had  an  ad- 
justable diaphragm,  a  timing  apparatus,  a  focus- 
ing scale  and  a  front  like  an  accordion.  One  aft- 
ernoon it  had  happened  that  while  two  hundred 
miles  from  a  city  and  twenty  from  the  nearest 
railroad,  the  snapshot  box  had  been  useless  bag- 
gage for  two  hours,  while  an  anxious  free  lance 
sat  perched  on  the  crest  of  an  Ozark  mountain 
studying  an  overcast  sky  and  praying  for  some 
sunlight.  At  last  the  sun  blazed  out  for  half  a 
minute  and  the  lever  clicked  in  exultation. 

This  experience  enforced  a  lesson:  "Learn 
to  take  any  sort  of  picture,  indoors  or  out,  on 


land  or  water,  in  any  sort  of  weather."  After 
I  got  the  new  machine,  with  a  tripod  to  insure 
stability  and  consequent  sharpness  of  outline,  a 
piece  of  lemon-colored  glass  for  cloud  photog- 
raphy and  another  extra  lens  for  portrait  work, 
I  began  snapping  at  anything  that  held  out  even 
the  faintest  promise  of  allowing  me  to  clear  ex- 
penses in  the  course  of  acquiring  needed  experi- 
ence. I  photographed  the  neighbors'  children, 
houses  offered  for  sale,  downtown  street  scenes 
and  any  number  of  x-marks-the-spot-of-the-acci- 
dent. 

When  a  cyclone  cut  a  swath  through  one  of 
our  suburbs,  I  rushed  half-a-dozen  photographs 
to  Leslie's,  feeling  again  some  of  the  same  thrill- 
ing sort  of  confidence  that  had  accompanied  the 
first  Irresistible  Wedge.  Back  came  three  dol- 
lars for  a  single  print.  Rather  a  proud  day, 
that!  Never  before  had  one  of  my  prints  sold 
for  more  than  fifty  cents. 

There  were  evenings  after  that  when  I  medi- 
tated giving  the  writing  game  good-by  in  favor 
of  photography ;  and  many  a  time  since  then  the 
old  temptation  has  recurred.  The  wonder  of 
catching  lovely  scenery  in  a  box  and  of  watch- 
ing film  and  print  reproduce  it  in  black  and  white 
keeps  ever  fresh  and  fascinating  to  me,  gratify- 
ing an  instinct  for  composition  in  one  whose  fin- 
gers are  too  clumsy  to  attempt  to  draw  or  paint. 


A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES    37 

In  those  early  days  of  my  adventures  in  pho- 
tography an  editor  came  very  near  the  literal 
truth  when  he  sarcastically  observed:  "Young 
man,  life  to  you  seems  to  be  just  one  long  un- 
developed film." 

Parallel  with  improvement  in  skill  as  a  pho- 
tographer, I  developed  a  working  plan  to  insure 
more  profitable  excursions  afield.  My  interested 
friends  among  editors  and  reporters  gladly  gave 
me  hints  about  possible  out-of-town  sources  of 
"stories,"  and  I  studied  the  news  columns,  even 
to  the  fine  type  of  the  Missouri  and  Kansas  state 
notes,  with  all  the  avidity  of  an  aged  hobo  de- 
vouring a  newspaper  in  the  public  library.  For 
every  possibility  I  made  out  a  card  index  memo- 
randum, as — 

KANAPOLIS,  KAS. 

Geographical  center  of  the  country.  Once 
proposed  as  the  capital  of  the  nation — and 
of  the  state  of  Kansas.  Now  a  whistling 
station  and  a  rock  salt  plant. 

For  each  memorandum  I  stuck  a  pin  in  the 
state  maps  pasted  on  the  wall  of  my  workshop. 
When  there  were  several  pins  in  any  neighbor- 
hood, I  would  sling  my  kodak  over  my  shoul- 
der, the  carrying  case  strapped  to  the  tripod-top, 
like  a  tramp  with  a  bundle  at  the  end  of  a  stick. 
And  then  away,  with  an  extra  pair  of  socks  and 


38    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

a  harmonica  for  baggage.  Besides  the  material 
that  I  felt  certain  of  finding  through  advance 
information,  luck  always  could  be  trusted  to  turn 
up  some  additional  "stories."  The  quickest  way 
to  find  out  what  there  was  to  write  about  in  a 
town  was  simply  to  walk  into  the  local  news- 
paper office,  introduce  myself  and  ask  for  some 
tips  about  possible  "features."  I  cannot  recall 
that  any  one  ever  refused  me,  or  ever  failed 
to  think  of  something  worth  while. 

I  do  not  know  yet  whether  what  I  discovered 
then  is  a  business  or  not,  but  I  made  a  living 
out  of  it.  Whereas  reporting  on  a  salary 
had  begun  to  be  something  of  a  grind,  the 
less  profitable  roamings  of  a  free  lance  fur- 
nished a  life  that  had  color  and  everlasting 
freshness. 

Sometimes,  trusting  in  the  little  gods  of  the 
improvident,  I  was  lured  into  the  backwoods  of 
the  Ozarks  by  such  a  name  as  "Mountain  Home," 
which  caught  my  fancy  on  the  map;  and  with 
no  definite  "stories"  in  mind  I  would  go  saunter- 
ing from  Nowhere-in-Particular  in  Northern  Ar- 
kansas to  Someplace  Else  in  Southern  Missouri, 
snapping  pictures  by  the  roadside  and  scribbling 
a  few  necessary  notes.  One  of  those  excursions, 
which  cost  $24.35,  has  brought  a  return,  to  date, 
of  more  than  $250,  which  of  course  does  not 
include  the  worth  of  a  five  days'  lark  with  a 


A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES     39 

young  Irishman  who  went  on  the  trip  as  a  novel 
form  of  summer  vacation. 

He  found  all  the  novelty  he  could  have  hoped 
for.  After  some  truly  lyric  passages  of  life  in 
Arkansas,  when  we  felt  positively  homesick  about 
leaving  one  town  to  go  on  to  another,  we  reached 
a  railroad-less  county  in  Missouri  infested  with 
fleas ;  and  to  secure  a  discount  on  the  stage  fare 
on  the  thirty-five-mile  drive  from  Gainsville  to 
West  Plains  (we  had  to  have  a  discount  to  save 
enough  to  buy  something  to  eat  that  night)  we 
played  the  harmonica  for  our  driver's  amuse- 
ment until  we  gasped  like  fish.  His  soul  was 
touched  either  by  the  melody  or  by  pity,  and  he 
left  us  enough  small  change  to  provide  a  sup- 
per of  cheese  and  crackers. 

Some  happenings  that  must  sound  much  more 
worth  while  in  the  ears  of  the  mundane  have 
followed,  but  those  first  days  of  free  lancing 
seem  to  me  to  be  among  the  choicest  in  a  jour- 
nalistic adventurer's  experience.  Encounters 
with  a  variety  of  celebrities  since  then  have 
proved  no  whit  more  thrilling  than  the  discov- 
ery that  our  host,  Jerry  South  of  Mountain 
Home,  was  lieutenant-governor  of  Arkansas; 
and  though  I  have  roamed  in  five  nations,  no 
food  that  I  ever  have  tasted  so  nearly  approaches 
that  of  the  gods  as  the  strawberry  shortcake  we 
ate  in  Bergman. 


40    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

Even  in  the  crass  matter  of  profits,  I  found 
the  small  town  richer  in  easily  harvestable 
"stories"  than  the  biggest  city  in  the  world.  A 
few  years  later  I  spent  a  week  in  London,  but  I 
picked  up  less  there  to  write  about  than  I  found 
in  Sabetha,  Kansas,  in  a  single  afternoon.  Sa- 
betha  furnished: 

Half  of  the  material  for  a  motor  car  article. 
(When  automobiles  were  still  a  novelty  to  the 
rural  population.)  This  sold  to  Leslie's. 

An  article  on  gasoline-propelled  railway 
coaches,  for  The  Illustrated  World. 

A  short  contribution  on  scientific  municipal 
management  of  public  utilities  in  a  small  town, 
for  Collier's. 

A  character  sketch  about  a  local  philanthropic 
money  lender,  for  Leslie's  and  the  Kansas  City 
Star. 

An  account  of  the  Kansas  Amish,  a  sect  some- 
thing like  the  Tolstoys,  for  Kansas  City,  St. 
Louis  and  New  York  newspapers. 

Short  Sunday  specials  about  a  $40,000  hos- 
pital and  a  thoroughly  modern  Kansas  farm 
house  for  Kansas  City  and  St.  Louis  Sunday  sec- 
tions. 

The  profits  of  these  excursions  were  not  al- 
ways immediate,  and  until  after  I  had  worked 
many  weeks  at  the  trade  there  were  periods  of 


A  BEGINNER'S  FIRST  ADVENTURES    41 

serious  financial  embarrassment.  To  cite  profit- 
able trips  too  early  is  to  get  ahead  of  my  story, 
but  the  time  is  none  the  less  propitious  to  re- 
mark that  a  country  town  or  a  small  city  cer- 
tainly is  as  good  a  place  for  the  free  lance  to 
operate  (once  he  knows  a  "story"  when  he  sees 
it)  as  is  New  York  or  Chicago,  Boston,  New 
Orleans  or  San  Francisco.  I  often  wonder  if  I 
would  not  have  been  better  off  financially  if  I 
had  kept  on  working  from  a  Kansas  City  head- 
quarters instead  of  emigrating  to  the  East. 

I  might  have  gone  on  this  way  for  a  long  time, 
in  contentment,  for  my  profits  were  steadily 
mounting  and  my  markets  extending.  But  one 
day  my  wanderings  extended  as  far  as  Chicago, 
and  there  I  ran  across  an  old  friend  of  student 
days.  He  had  been  the  cartoonist  of  the  college 
magazine  when  I  was  its  editor.  He  wore, 
drooping  from  one  corner  of  his  face,  a  rah-rah 
bulldog  pipe ;  an  enormous  portfolio  full  of  enor- 
mities of  drawing  was  under  one  arm,  and,  dan- 
gling at  the  end  of  the  other,  was  one  of  the 
tiniest  satchels  that  ever  concealed  a  nightgown. 

In  answer  to  questions  about  what  he  was  do- 
ing with  himself,  he  confessed  that  he  was  not 
making  out  any  better  than  most  other  newly 
graduated  students  of  art.  I  argued  that  if  Chi- 
cago did  not  treat  him  considerately,  he  ought 


42    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

to  head  for  New  York,  where  real  genius,  more 
than  likely,  would  be  more  quickly  appreciated. 
Also,  if  this  was  to  his  liking,  I  would  invite 
myself  to  go  along  with  him. 

We  went.     Now  sing,  O  Muse,  the  slaugh- 
ter! 


CHAPTER   VI 
IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET" 

THE  inexperienced  free  lance  who  attempts 
to  invade  New  York,  as  we  did,  with  no 
magazine  reputation  and  no  friends  at  court 
among  the  experts  of  the  periodical  market,  may 
be  assured  that  he  will  receive  a  surprising 
amount  of  courtesy.  But  this  courtesy  is  likely 
to  be  administered  to  help  soften  the  blows  of  a 
series  of  disappointments.  Anybody  but  a  gen- 
ius or  one  of  fortune's  darlings  may  expect 
that  New  York,  which  has  a  deep  and  natural 
distrust  of  strangers,  will  require  that  the  new- 
comer earn  his  bread  in  blood-sweat  until  he 
has  established  a  reputation  for  producing  the 
goods.  Dear  old  simple-hearted  Father  Knicker- 
bocker has  been  gold-bricked  so  often  that  a 
breezy,  friendly  manner  puts  him  immediately 
on  his  guard. 

Most  of  the  editors  with  whom  you  will  have 

to  deal -are  home  folks,  like  yourself,  from  Oska- 

loosa   and   Richmond   and   Santa   Barbara   and 

Quincy.      Few  are  native-born    New   Yorkers, 

43 


44    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

and  scarcely  any  of  them  go  around  with  their 
noses  in  the  air  in  an  "upstage  Eastern  man- 
ner." Most  of  them  are  graduates  of  the  news- 
paper school,  and  remnants  of  newspaper  cyni- 
cism occasionally  appear  in  their  outspoken  phi- 
losophy. But -be  not  deceived  by  this,  for  even  in 
the  -newspaper  office  the  half-baked  cub  who  is 
getting  his  first  glimpses  of  woman's  frailties 
and  man's  weak  will  is  the  only  cynic  who  means 
all  he  says.  All  reporters  who  are  worth  their 
salt  mellow  with  the  years;  and  editors  who 
amount  to  much  usually  are  ex-reporters  trained 
to  their  jobs  by  long  experience.  The  biggest 
editors  and  the  ones  with  the  biggest  hearts  have 
the  biggest  jobs.  Most  of  the  snubs  you  will 
receive  will  come  from  little  men  in  little  jobs, 
trying  to  impress  you  with  a  "front."  The  big- 
gest editors  of  the  lot  are  plain  home  folks  whom 
you  would  not  hesitate  to  invite  to  a  dinner  in 
a  farmhouse  kitchen. 

What  you  ought  to  know  when  you  invade 
New  York  without  much  capital  and  no  reputa- 
tion to  speak  of  is  that  you  are  making  a  great 
mistake  to  move  there  so  early,  and  that  most  of 
the  editors  to  whom  you  address  yourself  know 
you  are  making  a  mistake  but  are  too  soft- 
hearted to  tell  you  so. 

Like  most  other  over-optimistic  free  lances, 
we  invaded  New  York  with  an  expeditionary 


IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET"     45 

force  which  was  in  a  woeful  state  of  unprepared- 
ness. 

In  a  street  of  brownstone  fronts  in  mid-town 
Manhattan,  a  hurdy-gurdy  strummed  a  welcome 
to  us  in  the  golden  November  sunlight,  and  a 
canary  in  a  gilt  cage  twittered  ecstatically  from 
an  open  window.  This  moment  is  worthy  of 
mention  because  it  was  the  happiest  that  was 
granted  to  us  for  a  number  of  months  thereafter. 
We  rented  a  small  furnished  room,  top  floor 
rear,  and  went  out  for  a  stroll  on  Broadway, 
looking  the  city  over  with  the  appraising  eyes 
of  conquerors.  We  were  joyously  confident. 

One  reason  why  we  thought  we  would  do  well 
here  was  that  the  latter  months  of  the  period 
preceding  our  supposedly  triumphal  entry  had 
seen  me  arrive  at  the  point  of  earning  almost 
as  much  money  at  free  lancing  as  I  could  have 
made  as  a  reporter.  Meantime,  I  had  thrilled 
to  see  my  name  affixed  to  contributions  in  Col- 
•tier's,  Leslie's,  Outlook  and  Outing,  not  to  men- 
tion a  few  lesser  magazines.  I  thought  I  knew 
a  "story"  when  I  saw  one.  I  knew  how  to  take 
photographs  and  prepare  a  manuscript  for  mar- 
keting, and  New  York  newspapers  and  magazines 
had  been  treating  me  handsomely.  What  we 
did  not  realize  was  that  while  the  New  York 
markets  were  hospitable  enough  to  western  ma- 
terial, they  "required  no  further  assistance  in  re- 


46    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

porting  the  activities  of  Manhattan  Island.  We 
had  moved  away  from  our  gold  mine. 

Our  home  and  workshop  now  was  a  cubbyhole 
so  small  that  every  piece  of  furniture  in  the 
place  was  in  close  proximity  to  something  else. 
My  battered  desk  was  jam  against  my  room- 
mate's drawing  table,  and  his  chair  backed  against 
a  bed.  Then,  except  for  a  narrow  aisle  to  the 
door,  there  was  a  chair  which  touched  another 
bed,  which  touched  a  trunk;  the  trunk  touched 
ends  with  a  washstand,  which  was  jam  against 
a  false  mantel  pasted  onto  the  wall,  and  the 
mantel  was  in  juxtaposition  with  a  bureau  which 
poked  me  in  the  back.  The  window  looked  south, 
and  adjacent  buildings  allowed  it  to  have  sun- 
light for  almost  half  an  hour  a  day. 

Yet  it  would  have  been  a  cheerful  enough  place 
if  our  mail  had.  not  been  so  depressing.  Every- 
thing we  sent  out  came  right  back  with  a  bounce, 
sometimes  on  the  same  day  that  we  posted  it. 
With  indefatigable  zeal  we  wrote  feature 
"stories"  about  big  topics  in  America's  biggest 
city  and  furnished  illustrations  for  the  text.  But 
the  manuscripts  did  not  sell.  For  two  bitter 
months  we  kept  at  it  before  we  discovered  what 
was  wrong.  You  may  wonder  how  we  could 
have  been  so  blind.  But  there  was  no  one  to  tell 
us  what  to  do.  We  had  to  find  out  by  experi- 
ence. 


IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET"    47 

In  November  our  income  was  $60.90,  all  of 
it  echoes  from  the  past  for  material  written  in 
the  west. 

"How  that  crowd  in  the  old  office  would  laugh 
at  us  when  we  trailed  back  home,  defeated!" 

That  was  the  thought  which  was  at  once  a 
nightmare  and  a  goad  to  further  desperate  effort. 
Day  after  day  the  Art  Department  and  the  kodak 
and  I  explored  New  York's  highways  and  cen- 
ters of  interest.  The  place  was  ripe  with  bar- 
rels and  barrels  of  good  "feature  stories,"  and 
I  knew  it ;  and  the  markets  were  not  unfriendly, 
for  by  mail  I  had  sold  to  them  before.  But  now 
we  could  not  "land." 

On  Christmas  Day  there  was  a  dismal  storm. 
Our  purses  were  almost  flat,  and  my  box  from 
home  failed  to  arrive.  To  get  up  an  appetite 
for  dinner  that  night  we  went  for  a  walk  in  a 
joy  killing  blizzard.  I  wanted  to  die  and  planned 
to  do  so.  The  only  reason  I  did  not  jump  off  of 
a  pier  was  the  providential  intervention  of  sev- 
eral stiff  cocktails.  (I  am  theoretically  a  pro- 
hibitionist, but  grateful  to  the  enemy  for  having 
saved  my  life.)  The  black  cloud  that  shut  out 
all  sunlight  was  our  measly  total  for  December 
—$18.07. 

One  glimmer  of  hope  remained  in  a  growing 
suspicion  that  perhaps  some  of  the  "stories"  we 
had  submitted  had  seen  print  shortly  before  we 


48    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

arrived.  Possibly  some  other  free  lances — I 
would  now  estimate  the  number  as  somewhere 
between  nine  hundred  and  a  thousand — had  gone 
over  the  island  of  Manhattan  with  a  fine  tooth 
comb  ?  I  began  haunting  the  side  streets  to  seek 
out  the  most  hidden  possibilities,  and  ended  in 
triumph  one  afternoon  in  a  little  uptown  bird 
store. 

For  two  hours  the  young  woman  who  was  the 
proprietor  of  the  store  submitted  to  a  searching 
interview,  and  I  emerged  with  enough  material 
for  a  full  page  spread.  Then,  taking  no  chances 
of  being  turned  down  because  the  contribution 
was  too  long,  I  condensed  the  "story"  into  a 
column.  The  manuscript  went  to  the  Sunday 
Editor  of  the  New  York  Sun,  with  a  letter  plead- 
ing that  "just  this  once"  he  grant  me  the  special 
favor  of  a  note  to  explain  why  he  would  not  be 
able  to  use  what  I  had  to  offer. 

"Well  enough  written,"  he  scribbled  on  the  re- 
jection slip,  "but  Miss  Virginia  has  been  done 
too  many  times  before." 

With  that  a  great  light  dawned.  Further  in- 
vestigation discovered  that  we  had  run  into  the 
same  difficulty  on  numerous  other  occasions.  We 
newcomers  had  no  notion  of  how  thoroughly  and 
often  the  city  had  been  pillaged  for  news.  We 
could  not  tell  old  stuff  from  new.  Manhattan 
Island  is,  indeed,  the  most  perilous  place  in  all 


IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET"    49 

America  for  the  green  and  friendless  free  lance 
to  attempt  to  earn  a  living.  There  is  a  wonder- 
ful abundance  of  "stories,"  but  nearly  all  of 
them  that  the  eye  of  the  beginner  can  detect  have 
been  marketed  before.  Any  other  island  but 
Manhattan!  When  dog  days  came  around,  I 
took  a  vacation  on  Bois  Blanc  in  the  Straits  of 
Mackinac,  and  found  more  salable  "stories"  along 
its  thinly  populated  shores  than  Manhattan  had 
been  able  to  furnish  in  three  months.  Every- 
thing I  touched  on  Bois  Blanc  was  new,  and  all 
my  own.  Anything  on  Manhattan  is  everybody's. 

But  to  return  to  our  troubles  in  New  York. 
The  only  hope  I  could  see  was  to  create  a  line 
of  writing  all  our  own.  This  determination  re- 
sulted in  a  highly  specialized  type  of  "feature" 
for  which  we  found  a  market  in  the  morning 
New  York  World.  It  combined  novelty  with 
the  utmost  essence  of  timeliness.  For  example, 
precluding  any  possibility  of  being  anticipated 
on  the  opening  of  Coney  Island's  summer  season, 
we  wrote  early  in  February: 

"If  reports  from  unveracious  employees  of 
Coney  Island  are  to  be  trusted,  the  summer  sea- 
son of  1910  is  going  to  bring  forth  thrilling  nov- 
elties for  the  air  and  the  earth  and  the  tunnels 
beneath  the  earth." 

We  listed  then  the  Biplane  Hat  Glide  (women 
were  wearing  enormous  hats  that  season)  and 


50    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

Motor  Ten  Pins — get  in  a  motor  car  and  run 
down  dummies  which  count  respectively,  a  child, 
ten  points;  a  blind  man,  five;  a  newsboy,  one. 
Then  the  Shontshover.  We  explained  the  Shont- 
shover  in  detail  because  it  was  supposed  to  have 
a  particularly  strong  appeal  to  the  millions  who 
ride  in  the  subway: 

"New  York's  good-natured  enjoyment  of  its 
inadequate  subway  service  is  responsible  for  the 
third  novelty  of  the  season.  In  honor  of  a  gen- 
tleman who  once  took  a  ride  in  one  of  his  own 
subway  cars  during  the  rush  hour,  the  device 
has  been  named  the  'Shontshover'  (from 
'Shonts'  and  'shover').  It  is  the  sublimation  of 
a  subway  car,  a  cross  between  a  cartridge  and  a 
sardine  can.  The  passengers  are  packed  into 
the  shell  with  a  hydraulic  ram,  then  at  high 
speed  are  shot  through  a  pneumatic  tube  against 
a  stone  wall.  Because  of  the  great  number  of 
passengers  the  Shontshover  can  carry  in  a  day, 
the  admission  price  to  the  tube  is  to  be  only 
twenty-five  cents." 

We  suggested  on  other  occasions  that  new 
churches  should  have  floors  with  an  angle  of 
forty-five  degrees,  on  account  of  the  prevailing 
fashion  of  large  hats  among  women;  that  City 
Hall  employees  were  outwitting  Mayor  Gaynor's 
time  clock  by  paying  the  night  watchman  to  punch 
it  for  them  at  sunrise,  and  that  beauty  had  be- 


IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET"     51 

come  a  bar  to  a  job  as  waitress  in  numerous 
New  York  restaurants.  (O  shades  of  George 
Washington,  forgive  us  that  one,  at  least!) 
These  squibs  did  nobody  any  harm,  and  did  us 
on  the  average,  the  good  of  the  price  of  a  week's 
room  rent.  We  never  meant  them  to  be  taken 
seriously  or  ever  supposed  that  any  one  in  the 
world  would  swaHow  them  whole.  But  among 
our  readers  was  a  square-headed  German;  and 
one  of  the  most  absurd  of  our  imaginings  turned 
out,  as  a  result,  to  be  a  physical  possibility. 

"Ever  since  it  was  announced,  a  few  days  ago, 
that  hazing  in  a  modified  modernized  form  is  to 
be  permitted  at  West  Point,"  we  related,  "a  re- 
porter for  the  World  has  been  busily  interview- 
ing people  of  all  ages  and  interests  to  find  the 
latest  ideas  on  the  subject.  .  .  .  Some  small  boys 
in  Van  Cortlandt  Park  yesterday  afternoon,  di- 
abolo  experts,  suggested  'plebe  diabolo/  It  is 
simply  diabolo  for  grown-ups.  A  rope  takes  the 
place  of  the  customary  string  and  a  first  year 
man  is  used  for  a  spool.  Any  one  can  see  at  a 
glance  what  a  great  improvement  this  would  be 
over  the  old-fashioned  stunt  of  tossing  the  plebe 
in  a  blanket." 

A  few  months  later  I  picked  up  a  copy  of  the 
Scientific  American  and  chortled  to  read  the  ac- 
count of  a  German  acrobat  who  was  playing  in 
vaudeville  as  the  "Human  Diabolo." 


52    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

But  this  sort  of  thing  was  merely  temporizing, 
and  we  finally  had  to  abandon  it  for  subjects 
more  substantial.  By  a  slow  and  harrowing 
process  we  learned  our  specialties  and  made  a 
few  helpful  friends  in  New  York's  Fleet  Street. 
The  fittest  among  the  many  manuscripts  turned 
out  by  our  copy  mill  survived  to  teach  us  that 
the  surest  way  into  print  is  to  write  about  things 
closest  to  personal  knowledge — simple  and 
homely  themes  close  to  the  grass  roots.  We 
turned  again  to  middle  western  topics  and  the 
magazines  opened  their  doors  to  us.  We  plugged 
away  for  six  months  and  cleared  a  profit  large 
enough  to  pay  off  all  our  debts  and  leave  a  little 
margin.  Then  we  felt  that  we  could  look  the 
west  in  the  face  again,  and  go  home,  if  we  liked, 
without  a  consciousness  of  utter  defeat.  For 
though  we  had  not  won,  neither  had  we  lost. 
Our  books  struck  a  balance. 

When  the  Wanderlust  began  calling  again  in 
May,  I  sat  many  an  evening  in  the  window  of 
our  little  room,  gazing  down  into  the  backyard 
cat  arena  or  up  at  the  moon,  and  dragging  away 
at  a  Missouri  corncob  pipe  in  a  happy  revery. 
Some  of  my  manuscript  titles  of  editorial  para- 
graphs contributed  to  Collier's  trace  what  hap- 
pened next: 

Longings  at  the  Window. 
Packing  Up. 


IN  NEW  YORK'S  "FLEET  STREET"    53 

A  Mood  of  Moving  Day. 

From  Cab  to  Taxi. 

Outdoor  Sleeping  Quarters. 

Shortcake. 

Which  is  to  say  that  it  was  sweet  to  see  the 
home  folks  again,  to  eat  fried  chicken  and 
honest  homemade  strawberry  shortcake  and  to 
slumber  on  a  sleeping  porch.  Our  forces  had 
beat  a  strategic  retreat,  but  the  morale  was  not 
gone.  Our  determination  was  firm  to  assault 
New  York  again  at  the  first  favorable  oppor- 
tunity. Meanwhile,  we  had  learned  a  thing  or 
two. 


CHAPTER    VII 

SOMETHING  TO  SELL 

SIX  months  back  home,  toiling  like  a  galley 
slave,  furnished  requisite  funds  for  another 
fling  at  New  York.  If  ever  a  writer  burned 
with  zeal,  this  one  did.  Mississippi  Valley  sum- 
mers often  approach  the  torrid;  this  one  was  a 
record  breaker;  and  I  never  shall  forget  how 
often  that  summer,  after  a  hard  day's  work  as 
a  reporter,  I  stripped  to  the  waist  like  a  stoker 
and  scribbled  and  typed  until  my  eyes  and  fin- 
gers ached. 

It  was  wise — and  foolish.  Wise,  because  it 
furnished  the  capital  with  which  every  free  lance 
ought  to  be  well  supplied  before  he  attempts  to 
operate  from  a  New  York  headquarters.  Fool- 
ish, because  it  took  all  joy  of  life  out  of  my 
manuscripts  while  the  session  of  strenuousness 
lasted  and  left  me  wavering  at  the  end  almost 
on  the  verge  of  a  physical  breakdown.  Nights, 
Sundays  and  holidays  I  plugged  and  slogged, 
nor  did  I  relent  even  when  vacation  time  came 
round.  I  sojourned  to  the  Michigan  pine  woods, 
54 


SOMETHING  TO  SELL  55 

but  took  along  my  typewriter  and  kept  it  sing- 
ing half  of  every  day. 

The  new  year  found  me  in  New  York  again, 
alone  this  time  and  installed  in  a  comfortable 
two-room  suite  instead  of  an  attic.  A  reassur- 
ing bank  account  bolstered  up  my  courage  while 
the  work  was  getting  under  way. 

This  time  I  made  a  go  of  it;  and  such  ups 
and  downs  as  have  followed  in  the  ten  years 
succeeding  have  not  been  much  more  dramatic 
than  the  mild  adventures  that  befall  the  every- 
day business  man.  "Danger  is  past  and  now 
troubles  begin."  That  phrase  of  Gambetta's 
aptly  describes  the  situation  of  the  average  free 
lance  when,  after  the  first  desperate  struggles, 
he  has  managed  to  gain  a  reasonable  assurance 
of  independence. 

Confidence  comes  with  experience,  and  when 
you  no  longer  have  any  grave  fears  about  your 
ability  to  make  a  living  at  the  trade,  your  mind 
turns  from  elementary  problems  to  the  less  dis- 
tracting task  of  finding  out  how  to  make  your 
discovered  degree  of  talent  count  for  all  that  it 
may  be  worth.  After  trying  your  hand  at  a 
variety  of  subjects,  you  will  find  your  forte.  But 
take  your  time  about  it.  Every  adventure  in 
composition  teaches  you  something  new  about 
yourself,  your  art  and  the  markets  wherein  you 
gain  your  daily  bread.  The  way  to  learn  to  write 


— the  only  way — is  by  writing,  and  you  never 
will  know  what  you  might  do  unless  you  dare 
and  try. 

Both  as  a  matter  of  expediency  and  of  getting 
as  much  fun  out  of  the  work  as  possible,  it  is 
well  in  the  beginning  to  be  versatile.  Eventually, 
the  free  lance  faces  two  choices:  He  may  be- 
come a  specialist  and  put  in  the  remainder  of 
his  life  writing  solely  about  railroads,  or  about 
finance,  or  about  the  drama.  Or  he  may,  as 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  did,  turn  his  hand  as 
the  mood  moves  him,  to  fiction,  verse,  fables, 
biography,  criticism,  drama  or  journalism — a  lit- 
tle of  everything.  For  my  own  part,  I  have 
always  had  something  akin  to  pity  for  the  fellow 
who  is  bound  hand  and  foot  to  one  interest. 
Let  the  fame  and  the  greater  profits  of  special- 
ization go  hang;  "an  able  bodied  writin'  man" 
can  best  possess  his  soul  if  he  does  not  harness 
Pegasus  to  plow  forever  in  one  cabbage  patch. 

Like  the  Ozark  Mountain  farmer  who  also 
ran  a  country  store,  a  saw  mill,  a  deer  park,  a 
sorghum  mill,  a  threshing  machine  and  preached 
in  the  meetin'  house  on  Sunday  mornings,  I 
have  turned  my  pen  to  any  honest  piece  of  writ- 
ing that  appealed  strongly  enough  to  my  fancy 
— travel,  popular  science,  humor,  light  verse,  edi- 
torials, essays,  interviews,  personality  sketches 
and  captions  for  photographs.  Genius  takes  a 


SOMETHING  TO  SELL  57 

short  cut  to  the  highroad.  But  waste  not  your 
sympathy  on  the  rest  of  us,  for  the  byways  have 
their  own  charm. 

While  one  is  finding  his  footing  in  the  free 
lance  fields,  he  had  best  not  hold  himself  above 
doing  any  kind  of  journalistic  work  that  turns 
an  honest  dollar.  For  he  becomes  richer  not 
only  by  the  dollar,  but  also  by  the  acquaintances 
he  makes  and  the  valuable  experience  he  gains  in 
turning  that  dollar.  There  was  a  time — and  not 
so  long  ago — when,  if  the  writer  called  at  the 
waiting  room  of  the  Leslie- Judge  Company,  the 
girl  at  the  desk  would  try  to  guess  whether  he 
had  a  drawing  to  show  to  the  Art  Editor,  a  frivo- 
lous manuscript  for  Judge  or  a  serious  article 
for  Leslie's.  At  the  Doubleday,  Page  plant  the 
uncertainty  was  about  whether  the  caller  sought 
the  editor  of  World's  Work,  Country  Life,  the 
Red  Cross  Magazine  or  Short  Stories — he  had, 
at  various  times,  contributed  to  all  of  these  pub- 
lications. 

Smile,  if  you  like,  but  there  is  no  better  way 
to  discover  what  you  can  do  best  than  to  try 
your  'prentice  hand  at  a  great  variety  of  topics 
and  mediums.  The  post-graduate  course  of 
every  school  of  journalism  is  a  roped  arena  where 
you  wrestle,  catch  as  catch  can,  for  the  honors 
bestowed  by  experience. 

This  experience,  painfully  acquired,  should  be 


58    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

backed  up  by  an  elementary  knowledge  of  sales- 
manship. Super-sensitive  souls  there  are  who 
shudder  at  the  mere  mention  of  the  word;  and 
why  this  is  so  is  not  difficult  to  understand — 
their  minds  are  poisoned  with  sentimental  mis- 
apprehensions. Get  rid  of  those  misapprehen- 
sions just  as  swiftly  as  you  can.  If  you  have 
something  to  sell,  be  it  hardware  or  a  manuscript, 
common  sense  should  dictate  that  you  learn  a 
little  about  how  to  sell  it. 

Expert  interviewers  prepare  themselves  both 
for  their  topic  and  their  man  before  they  go  into 
a  confab — a  practice  which  should  be  followed  to 
some  extent  by  every  writer  who  sets  out  to  in- 
terview an  editor  about  a  manuscript.  What  you 
have  to  offer  should  be  prepared  to  suit  the 
needs  of  the  editor  to  whom  the  contribution  is 
addressed.  So  you  should  study  your  magazine 
just  as  carefully  as  you  do  the  subject  about 
which  you  are  writing.  In  your  interview  with 
the  editor  or  in  the  letter  which  takes  the  place 
of  an  interview,  state  briefly  whatever  should 
be  useful  to  his  enlightenment.  That  is  all. 
There  you  have  the  first  principles  of  what  is 
meant  by  "an  elementary  knowledge  of  sales- 
manship." If  you  don't  know  what  you  are 
talking  about  or  anything  about  the  possible  needs 
of  the  man  to  whom  you  are  talking,  how  can 
you  expect  to  interest  him  in  any  commodity 


SOMETHING  TO  SELL  59 

under  heaven?  Say  nothing  that  you  don't  be- 
lieve— he  won't  believe  it,  either.  Never  fool 
him.  If  you  do,  you  may  sell  him  once,  but 
never  again. 

There  is  no  dark  art  to  salesmanship;  it  is 
simply  a  matter  of  delivering  the  goods  in  a 
manner  dictated  by  courtesy,  sincerity,  common 
sense  and  common  honesty.  Be  yourself  with- 
out pose,  and  don't  forget  that  the  editor — 
whether  you  believe  it  or  not — is  just  as  "hu- 
man" as  you  are,  and  quick  to  respond  to  the 
best  that  there  is  in  you.  Shake  off  the  delusion 
that  you  need  to  play  the  "good  fellow"  to  him, 
like  the  old-fashioned  type  of  drummer  in  a 
small  town.  Simply  and  sincerely  and  straight 
from  the  shoulder — also  briefly,  because  he  is  a 
busy  man — state  your  case,  leave  your  literary 
goods  for  inspection  and  go  your  way. 

He  will  judge  you  and  your  manuscript  on 
merits;  if  he  does  not,  he  will  not  long  continue 
to  be  an  editor.  The  two  greatest  curses  of  his 
existence  (I  speak  from  experience)  are  the 
poses  and  the  incurable  loquaciousness  of  some 
of  his  callers  and  correspondents.  Don't  at- 
tempt to  spring  any  correspondence  school  sales- 
manship on  a  real  editor.  Learn  what  real  sales- 
manship is,  from  a  real  salesman — who  may  sell 
bacon,  or  steel  or  motor  cars  instead  of  manu- 
scripts. He  lives  down  your  street,  perhaps. 


60    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

Have  a  talk  with  him.  He  will  tell  you  of  the 
profits  in  a  square  deal  and  in  knowing  your 
business,  and  what  can  be  accomplished  by  a 
little  faith. 

If  you  are  temperamentally  unfit  to  sell  your 
own  writings,  get  a  competent  literary  agent  to 
do  the  job  for  you.  But  don't  too  quickly  de- 
spair, for  after  all,  there  is  nothing  particularly 
subtle  about  salesmanship.  Sincerity,  however 
crude,  usually  carries  conviction.  If  you  know 
a  "story"  when  you  see  it,  if  you  write  it  right 
and  type  it  in  professional  form  and  give  it  the 
needed  illustrations;  then  if  you  offer  it  in  a 
common  sense  manner  to  a  suitable  market,  you 
can  be  trusted  to  handle  your  own  products  as 
successfully  as  the  best  salesman  in  America — 
as  successfully  as  Charles  Schwab  himself.  For, 
above  all,  remember  this:  the  editor  is  just  as 
eager  to  buy  good  stuff  as  you  are  to  sell  it. 
Nothing  is  simpler  than  to  make  a  sale  in  the 
literary  market  if  you  have  what  the  editor 
wants. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

WHAT  THE  EDITOR  WANTS 

SUPPOSE  you  were  the  manager  of  an  im- 
mense forum,  a  stadium  like  the  one  in  San 
Diego,  California,  where  with  the  aid  of  a  glass 
cage  and  an  electrical  device  increasing  the  in- 
tensity of  the  human  voice,  it  is  possible  to  reach 
the  ears  of  a  world's  record  audience  of  50,000 
persons.  What  sort  of  themes  would  you  favor 
when  candidates  for  a  place  on  your  speaking 
program  asked  you  what  they  ought  to  dis- 
cuss? "The  Style  of  Walter  Pater?"  "The 
Fourth  Dimension?"  "Florentine  Art  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century?"  Not  likely!  You  would 
insist  upon  simple  and  homely  themes,  of  the 
widest  possible  appeal. 

A  parallel  case  is  that  of  the  editor  of  a  maga- 
zine of  general  circulation.  He  manages  a  forum 
so  much  larger  than  the  famous  stadium  at  San 
Diego  that  the  imagination  is  put  to  a  strain  to 
picture  it.  On  the  generally  accepted  assump- 
tion that  each  sold  copy  of  a  popular  magazine 
eventually  reaches  an  average  of  five  persons, 
61 


62    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

there  is  one  forum  in  the  magazine  world  of 
America  which  every  week  assembles  a  throng 
of  ten  million  or  more  assorted  citizens,  gath- 
ered from  everywhere,  coast  to  coast,  men  and 
women,  young  and  old,  every  walk  of  life.  A 
dozen  other  periodicals  address  at  least  half 
that  number,  and  the  humblest  of  the  widely 
known  magazines  reaches  a  quarter  of  a  million 
— five  times  as  many  persons  as  jammed  their 
way  into  the  San  Diego  stadium  one  time  to 
hear  a  speech  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States. 

Put  yourself  into  the  shoes  of  the  manager 
of  one  of  these  forums,  and  try  to  understand 
some  of  his  difficulties. 

A  dozen  times  a  day  the  editor  of  a  popular 
periodical  is  besieged  by  contributors  to  make 
some  sort  of  answer  to  the  question:  "What 
kind  of  material  are  you  seeking?" 

What  else  can  he  reply,  in  a  general  way,  but 
"something  of  wide  appeal,  to  interest  our  wide 
circle  of  readers"? 

There  are  times,  of  course,  when  he  can  speak 
specifically  and  with  assurance,  if  all  he  happens 
to  require  at  the  moment  to  give  proper  balance 
to  his  table  of  contents  is  one  or  two  manuscripts 
of  a  definite  type.  Then  he  may  be  able  to  say, 
off-hand:  "An  adventure  novelette  of  twenty 
thousand  words,"  or,  "An  article  on  the  high  cost 


.WHAT  THE  EDITOR  WANTS       63 

of  shoe  leather,  three  thousand  five  hundred 
words."  But  this  is  a  happy  situation  which  is 
not  at  all  typical.  Ordinarily,  he  stands  in  con- 
stant need  of  half  a  dozen  varieties  of  material ; 
but  to  describe  them  all  in  detail  to  every  caller 
would  take  more  time  than  he  could  possibly 
afford  to  spare. 

He  cannot  stop  to  explain  to  every  applicant 
that  among  what  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  de- 
scribed as  "the  real  deficiencies  of  social  inter- 
course" is  the  fact  that  while  two's  company 
three's  a  crowd;  that  with  each  addition  to  this 
crowd  the  topics  of  conversation  must  broaden 
in  appeal,  seeking  the  greatest  common  divisor 
of  interests;  and  that  a  corollary  is  the  unfor- 
tunate fact  that  the  larger  the  crowd  the  fewer 
and  more  elemental  must  become  the  subjects  that 
are  possible  for  discussion. 

Every  editor  knows  that  a  lack  of  judgment 
in  selecting  themes  of  broad  enough  appeal  to 
interest  a  nation-wide  public  is  one  of  the  novice 
scribbler's  most  common  failings.  It  is  due 
chiefly  to  a  lack  of  imagination  on  the  part  of 
the  would-be  contributor,  who  appears  to  be  in- 
capable of  projecting  himself  into  the  editorial 
viewpoint.  I  can  testify  from  my  own  experi- 
ence that  a  single  day's  work  as  an  editor,  wad- 
ing through  a  bushel  of  mail,  taught  me  more 
about  how  to  make  a  selection  of  subjects  than 


64    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

six  months  of  shooting  in  the  dark  as  a  free 
lance. 

Every  editor  knows  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  the 
unsolicited  manuscripts  which  he  will  find  piled 
upon  his  desk  for  reading  to-morrow  morning 
will  prove  to  be  wholly  unfitted  for  the  uses  of 
his  magazine.  The  man  outside  the  sanctum 
fails  utterly  to  understand  the  editor's  dilemma. 

This  is  the  situation  which  has  produced  the 
"staff  writer,"  and  has  brought  down  upon  the 
editor  the  protests  of  his  more  discriminating 
readers  against  "standardized  fiction"  and  against 
sundry  uninspired  articles  produced  to  measure 
by  faithful  hacks.  The  editor  defends  his  course 
in  printing  this  sort  of  material  upon  the  ground 
that  a  magazine  made  up  wholly  of  unsolicited 
material  would  be  a  horrid  melange,  far  more 
distressing  to  the  consumer  than  the  present  type 
of  popular  periodical  which  is  so  largely  made  to 
order.  All  editors  read  unsolicited  material  hope- 
fully and  eagerly.  Many  an  editor  gives  this 
duty  half  of  his  working  day  and  part  of  his 
evenings  and  Sundays.  All  of  the  reward  of  a 
discoverer  is  his  if  he  can  herald  a  new  worth- 
while writer.  Moreover,  the  interest  of  economy 
bids  him  be  faithful  in  the  task,  for  the  novice 
does  not  demand  the  high  rates  of  the  renowned 
professional. 

Yet  even  on  the  largest  of  our  magazines, 


where  the  stream  of  contributions  is  enormous, 
the  most  diligent  search  is  not  fruitful  of  much 
material  that  is  worth  while.  The  big  magazines 
have  to  order  most  of  their  material  in  advance, 
like  so  much  sausage  or  silk;  and  much  of  the 
contents  is  planned  for  many  months  ahead. 
Scarcely  any  dependence  can  be  placed  upon 
the  luck  of  what  drifts  into  the  office  in  the 
mails. 

Inevitably,  the  magazines  must  have  large  re- 
course to  "big  names,"  not  because  of  inbred 
snobbishness  on  the  part  of  the  editors  but  be- 
cause the  "big  name,"  besides  carrying  advertis- 
ing value,  is  more  likely  than  a  little  one  to  stand 
for  material  with  a  "big"  theme,  handled  by  a 
writer  of  experience.  A  surer  touch  in  selecting 
and  handling  topics  of  nation-wide  appeal  is 
what  counts  most  heavily  in  favor  of  the  writer 
with  an  established  reputation.  Often  enough 
it  is  not  his  vastly  superior  craftsmanship.  I 
know  of  several  famous  magazine  writers  who 
never  in  their  lives  have  got  their  material  into 
print  in  the  form  in  which  it  originally  was  sub- 
mitted. They  are  what  the  trade  calls  "go-get- 
ters." They  deliver  the  "story"  as  best  they 
can,  and  a  more  skillful  stylist  completes  the  job. 

Success  in  marketing  non-fiction  to  popular 
magazines  appears  to  hinge  largely  upon  the 
quality  of  the  thinking  the  writer  does  before  he 


66    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

sets  pen  to  paper.  A  classic  anecdote  of  New 
York's  Fleet  Street  may  illustrate  the  point: 

The  publisher  of  a  national  weekly  was  hiring 
a  newspaper  man  as  editor. 

"Is  this  a  writing  job?"  the  applicant  inquired. 

"No !"  growled  the  publisher,  "a  thinkin'  job !" 

The  writer  of  non-fiction  is  in  the  same  boat 
with  the  editor  who  buys  his  articles;  he  calls 
himself  a  writer,  but  primarily  he  is  up  against 
a  thinking  job.  The  actual  writing  of  his  ma- 
terial is  secondary  to  good  judgment  in  select- 
ing what  is  known  as  a  "compelling"  theme.  If 
he  can  produce  a  "real  story"  and  get  it  onto 
paper  in  some  sort  of  intelligent  fashion,  what 
remains  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  craftsmanship 
can  be  handled  inside  the  magazine  office  by  a 
"re-write  man."  Make  sure,  first  of  all,  that 
what  you  have  to  say  is  something  that  ought  to 
interest  the  large  audience  to  which  you  address 
it. 

Nobody  with  a  grain  of  common  sense  would 
attempt  to  discuss  "The  Style  of  Walter  Pater" 
to  fifty  thousand  restless  and  croupy  auditors 
in  the  vast  San  Diego  stadium,  but  the  average 
free  lance  sees  nothing  of  equal  absurdity  about 
attempting  to  cram  an  essay  on  Pater  down  the 
throats  of  a  miscellaneous  crowd  in  a  stadium 
which  is  from  a  hundred  to  two  hundred  times 
as  large — the  forum  into  which  throng  the  thou- 


WHAT  THE  EDITOR  WANTS        67 

sands  who  read  one  of  our  large  popular  maga- 
zines. 

Much  as  we  may  regret  to  acknowledge  it, 
there  is  no  way  to  get  around  the  fact  that  the 
larger  and  more  general  the  circulation  of  a 
periodical,  the  more  universal  must  be  the  appeal 
of  the  material  printed  and  the  fewer  the  main- 
stays of  interest,  until  in  a  magazine  with  a  circu- 
lation of  more  than  a  million  copies  the  chief 
classifications  of  non-fiction  material  required 
can  easily  be  counted  upon  the  fingers.  The  edi- 
tor of  such  a  publication  necessarily  is  limited 
to  handling  rather  elemental  topics;  so  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  when  we  hear  that  the  largest 
publication  of  them  all  makes  its  mainstays  two 
such  universally  interesting  and  world-old  themes 
as  business  and  "the  way  of  a  man  with  a  maid." 

Examine  any  popular  magazine  which  has  a 
circulation  of  general  readers,  speaking  to  a 
forum  of  anywhere  from  a  quarter  of  a  million 
to  ten  million  assorted  readers,  and  you  will  find 
that  the  non-fiction  material  which  it  is  most 
eager  to  buy  may  easily  be  classified  into  half  a 
dozen  types  of  articles,  all  concerned  with  the 
ruling  passions  of  the  average  American,  as: 

1.  His  job. 

2.  His  hearthstone. 

3.  His  politics. 

4.  His  recreations. 


68    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

5.  His  health. 

6.  Happenings  of  national  interest. 
Examine  a  few  of  these  types  of  contributions 

to  arrive  at  a  clearer  understanding  of  why 
they  are  so  justly  popular.  Your  average  Amer- 
ican is,  first  of  all,  keenly  interested  in  his  job. 
It  is  much  more  to  him,  usually,  than  just  a 
way  to  make  a  living.  It  fascinates  him  like  a 
game,  and  you  often  hear  him  describe  it  as  a 
"game."  What,  then,  is  more  natural  than  that 
he  should  eagerly  read  articles  of  practical  help- 
fulness concerned  with  his  activities  in  office 
or  store,  factory  or  farm?  The  largest  of  our 
popular  magazines  never  appear  without  some- 
thing which  touches  this  sort  of  interest,  stimu- 
lating the  man  of  affairs  to  strive  after  further 
successes  and  advancement  in  his  chosen  occu- 
pation. Many  specialized  business  and  trade 
publications  and  more  than  a  score  of  skillfully 
edited  farm  magazines  thrive  upon  developing 
this  class  of  themes  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
material. 

A  second  vital  interest  is  the  hearthstone — 
suggesting  such  undying  topics  as  love  and  the 
landlord,  marriage  and  divorce,  the  training  of 
children,  the  household  budget,  the  high  cost  of 
living,  those  compelling  themes  which  have  built 
up  the  women's  magazines  into  institutions  of 
giant  stature  and  tremendous  power. 


.WHAT  THE  EDITOR  WANTS       & 

Politics  is  another  field  of  almost  universal 
interest,  broadening  every  day  now  that  women 
have  the  ballot  and  now  that  our  vision  is  no 
longer  limited  to  the  homeland  horizon,  but  finds 
itself  searching  eagerly  onward  into  interna- 
tional relationships.  Once  we  were  content,  as  a 
national  body  politic,  to  discuss  candidates  for 
the  Presidency  or  what  our  stand  should  be 
upon  currency  and  the  tariff.  To-day  we  are 
also  gravely  concerned  to  know  what  is  to  be- 
come of  Russia  and  Germany,  or  how  the  po- 
litical and  social  unrest  in  France  and  Italy  and 
England  will  affect  the  peace  of  the  world. 

As  a  fourth  point,  your  average  American 
these  days  is  quick  to  respond  to  anything  worth 
while  concerning  his  recreations.  As  a  conse- 
quence, much  space  is  reserved  in  the  big  maga- 
zines for  articles  on  society,  travel,  the  theater 
and  the  movies,  motor  cars,  country  life,  outings, 
and  such  popular  sports  as  golf,  baseball  and 
tennis.  Every  one  of  these  topics,  besides  being 
dealt  with  in  the  general  magazines,  has  its  own 
special  mouthpiece. 

Health  always  has  been  a  subject  constantly 
on  the  tip  of  everybody's  tongue,  but  never  be- 
fore has  so  much  been  printed  about  the  more 
important  phases  of  it  than  appears  in  the  popu- 
lar magazines  of  to-day.  Knowledge  of  the 
common  sense  rules  of  diet,  exercise,  ventila- 


70    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

tion  and  the  like  are  becoming  public  possession 
— thanks  largely  to  the  magazines  and  the  news- 
paper syndicates. 

A  sixth  mainstay  of  the  magazines  is  in  the 
presentation  of  articles  dealing  with  happenings 
of  national  interest  or  personalities  prominent 
in  the  day's  news.  This  task  grows  increasingly 
difficult  as  the  newspapers  tighten  their  grip  upon 
the  public's  attention  and  as  the  news  pictorials 
of  the  moving  picture  screen  gain  in  popular 
esteem  by  improved  technical  skill  and  more  in- 
telligent editing.  The  magazine  of  large  circu- 
lation must  go  to  press  so  long  before  the  news- 
papers and  the  films  that  much  perishable  news 
must  be  thrown  out,  even  though  it  is  of  nation 
wide  appeal.  The  magazines  are  coming  to  find 
their  greatest  usefulness  in  the  news  field  in  gath- 
ering up  the  loose  ends  of  scattered  paragraphs 
which  the  daily  newspapers  have  no  time  to 
weave  together  into  a  pattern.  In  the  magazine 
the  patchwork  of  daily  journalism  is  assembled 
into  more  meaningful  designs.  Local  news  is 
sifted  of  its  provincialism  to  become  matter  of 
national  concern.  Topics  which  you  rapidly 
skimmed  in  the  afternoon  newspaper  three  or 
four  weeks  ago  are  re-discussed  in  the  weekly 
or  monthly  magazines  in  a  way  which  often 
makes  you  feel  that  here,  for  the  first  time,  they 
become  of  personal  import. 


WHAT  THE  EDITOR  WANTS        71 

The  purpose  of  the  suggestions  sketched  above 
is  not  to  supply  canned  topics  to  ready  writers, 
but  to  set  ambitious  scribblers  to  the  task  of 
doing  some  thinking  for  themselves.  Instead  of 
shiftlessly  tossing  the  whole  burden  of  respon- 
sibility for  choice  of  topics  to  a  hard  driven  edi- 
tor, and  whining,  "Please  give  me  an  idea!" 
search  around  on  your  own  initiative  for  a  theme 
worth  presenting  to  the  attention  of  a  throng  of 
widely  assorted  listeners — for  a  "story"  that 
ought  to  appeal  to  America's  multitudes.  If 
your  topic  is  big  enough  for  a  big  audience,  your 
chances  are  prime  to  get  a  hearing  for  it.  Dig 
up  the  necessary  facts,  the  "human  interest"  and 
the  national  significance  of  the  case.  Then,  rest 
assured,  that  "story"  is  what  the  editor  wants. 


CHAPTER    IX 

AND   IF  YOU  DO— 

SOMETHING  in  the  misty  sunshine  this 
morning  made  you  restless.  Vague  long- 
ings, born  of  springtime  mystery,  stirred  your 
blood,  quickened  the  imagination.  Roads  that 
never  were,  and  mayhap  never  will  be,  beckoned 
you  with  their  sinuous  curves  and  graceful  shade 
trees  toward  velvety  fields  beyond  the  city's  sky- 
line. The  sweet  fragrance  of  blossoming  or- 
chards tingled  in  your  nostrils  and  thrilled  you 
with  wanderlust.  Haunting  melodies  quavered 
in  your  ears.  Your  old  briar  pipe  never  tasted 
so  sweet  before.  Adventure  never  seemed  so 
imminent.  A  golden  day.  What  will  you  do 
with  it? 

You  could  write  to-day,  but  if  you  did,  you 
know  you  could  support  no  patience  for  prosy 
facts,  statistics  and  photographs.  Whatever  urge 
you  feel  appears  to  be  toward  verse  or  fiction. 
Well,  why  not?  Try  it!  You  never  know  what 
you  might  do  in  writing  until  you  dare. 

Verse  is  largely  its  own  reward. 
72 


AND  IF  YOU  DO—  73 

Fiction,  when  it  turns  out  successfully,  fetches 
a  double  reward.  It  pays  both  in  personal  satis- 
faction, as  a  form  of  creative  art,  and  also  as  a 
marketable  commodity,  which  always  is  in  great 
demand,  and  which  can  be  cashed  in  to  meet 
house  rent  and  grocers'  bills. 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  little  book — 
nor  of  its  author's  abilities — to  attempt  a  discus- 
sion of  fiction  methods.  Too  many  other  writers, 
better  qualified  to  speak,  have  dealt  with  fiction 
in  scores  of  worth  while  volumes.  Too  many 
successful  story  tellers  have  related  their  ex- 
periences and  treated,  with  authority,  of  the  short 
story,  the  novelette  and  the  long  novel. 

The  purpose  here  can  be  only  to  urge  that  an 
attempt  to  write  fiction  is  a  logical  step  ahead 
for  any  scribbler  who  has  won  a  moderate  de- 
gree of  success  in  selling  newspaper  copy  and 
magazine  articles.  The  eye  that  can  perceive  the 
dramatic  and  put  it  into  non-fiction,  the  heart 
that  knows  human  interest,  the  understanding 
that  can  tell  a  symbol,  the  artist-instinct  that 
can  catch  characteristic  colors,  scents  and  sounds, 
all  should  aid  a  skilled  writer  of  articles  to  turn 
his  energies,  with  some  hope  of  achievement, 
toward  producing  fiction.  The  hand  that  can 
fashion  a  really  vivid  article  holds  out  promise 
of  being  able  to  compose  a  convincing  short  story, 
if  grit  and  ambition  help  push  the  pen. 


74    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

The  temptation  to  dogmatize  here  is  strong, 
for  the  witness  can  testify  that  he  has  seen  en- 
viable success  crown  many  a  fiction  writer  who, 
apparently,  possessed  small  native  talent  for  story 
telling,  and  who  won  his  laurels  through  sheer 
pluck  and  persistence.  One  of  these  pluggers 
declares  he  blesses  the  rejection  slip  because  it 
"eliminates  so  many  quitters." 

But  of  course  it  would  be  absurd  to  believe 
that  any  one  with  unlimited  courage  and  elbow 
grease  could  win  at  fiction,  lacking  all  aptitude 
for  it.  Just  as  there  are  photographers  who  can 
snap  pictures  for  twenty  years  without  produc- 
ing a  single  happy  composition  (except  by  acci- 
dent), and  reporters  who  never  develop  a  "nose 
for  news,"  there  are  story  writers  who  can  mas- 
ter all  the  mechanics  of  tale-telling,  through  sheer 
drudgery,  and  yet  continually  fail  to  catch  fic- 
tion's spark  of  life.  They  fail,  and  shall  always 
fail.  Yet  it  is  better  to  have  strived  and  failed, 
than  never  to  have  tried  at  all. 

Why?  For  the  good  of  their  artists'  con- 
sciences, in  the  first  place.  And,  in  the  second, 
because  no  writer  can  earnestly  struggle  with 
words  without  learning  something  about  them 
to  his  trade  advantage. 

A  confession  may  be  in  order:  your  deponent 
testifies  freely,  knowing  that  anything  he  may 
say  may  be  used  against  him,  that  for  years  he 


AND  IF  YOU  DO—  75 

has  been  a  tireless  producer  of  unsuccessful  fic- 
tion, yet  he  views  his  series  of  rebuffs  in  this 
medium  calmly  and  even  somewhat  humorously. 
For,  by  trade,  he  is  a  writer  of  articles,  and  he 
earnestly  believes  that  the  mental  exercise  of 
attempting  to  produce  fiction  acts  as  a  healthy  in- 
fluence upon  a  non-fictionist's  style.  It  stimu- 
lates the  torpid  imagination.  It  quickens  the 
eye  for  the  vivid  touches,  the  picturesque  and 
the  dramatic.  It  is  a  groping  toward  art. 

"Art,"  writes  one  who  knows,  "is  a  mistress 
so  beautiful,  so  high,  so  noble,  that  no  phrases 
can  fitly  characterize  her,  no  service  can  be 
wholly  worthy  of  her." 

Perhaps  such  art  as  goes  into  the  average  maga- 
zine article  is  not  likely  to  merit  much  high- 
sounding  praise.  In  our  familiar  shop  talk  we 
are  prone  to  laugh  about  it.  But  even  the  most 
commercial-minded  of  our  brotherhood  cherishes 
deep  in  his  heart  a  craftsman's  pride  in  work 
well  done.  So  your  deponent  testifies  in  his 
own  defense  that  his  copybook  exercises  in  fic- 
tion, half  of  which  end  in  the  wastebasket,  seem 
well  worth  the  pains  that  they  cost,  so  long  as 
they  help  keep  alive  in  his  non-fiction  bread- 
winners a  hankering  after  (if  not  a  flavor  of) 
literary  art. 

And  now  must  he  apologize  further  for  using 
a  word  upon  which  writers  in  these  confessedly 


76    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

commercial  days  appear  to  have  set  a  taboo? 
Then  a  passage  from  "The  Study  of  Literature" 
(Arlo  Bates)  may  serve  for  the  apology: 

"Life  is  full  of  disappointment,  and  pain,  and 
bitterness,  and  that  sense  of  futility  in  which 
all  of  these  evils  are  summed  up;  and  yet  were 
there  no  other  alleviation,  he  who  knows  and 
truly  loves  literature  finds  here  a  sufficient  rea- 
son to  be  glad  he  lives.  Science  may  show  a 
man  how  to  live;  art  makes  living  worth  his 
while.  Existence  to-day  without  literature  would 
be  a  failure  and  a  despair;  and  if  we  cannot  satis- 
factorily define  our  art,  we  at  least  are  aware 
how  it  enriches  and  ennobles  the  life  of  every 
human  being  who  comes  within  the  sphere  of 
its  gracious  influence." 

So,  we  repeat :  for  the  good  of  the  artist's  self- 
respect  as  well  as  for  his  craftsmanship  it  is 
worth  while  to  attempt  fiction.  If  only  as  a 
tonic!  If  only  to  jog  himself  out  of  a  rut  of 
habit! 

If  he  succeeds  with  fiction  he  has  bright  hopes 
of  winning  much  larger  financial  rewards  for  his 
labor  than  he  is  likely  to  gain  by  writing  articles. 
Non-fiction  rarely  brings  in  more  than  one  re- 
turn upon  the  investment,  but  a  good  short  story 
or  novel  may  fetch  several.  First,  his  yarn  sells 
to  the  magazine.  Then  it  may  be  re-sold  ("sec- 
ond serial  rights")  to  the  newspapers.  Finally, 


AND  IF  YOU  DO—  77 

it  may  fetch  the  largest  cash  return  of  all  by  be- 
ing marketed  to  a  motion  picture  corporation 
as  the  plot  for  a  scenario.  In  some  instances 
even  this  does  not  exhaust  all  the  possibilities, 
for  if  British  magazines  and  bookmen  are  in- 
terested in  the  tale,  the  "English  rights"  of  pub- 
lication may  add  another  payment  to  the  total. 

Not  all  of  the  features  of  this  picture,  how- 
ever, should  be  painted  in  rose-colors.  A  dis- 
concerting and  persistent  rumor  has  it  that  what 
once  was  a  by-product  of  fiction — the  sale  of 
"movie  rights" — is  now  threatening  to  run  off 
with  the  entire  production.  The  side  show,  we 
are  warned,  is  shaping  the  policy  of  the  main 
tent.  Which  is  to  say  that  novelists  and  maga- 
zine fiction  writers  are  accused  of  becoming  more 
concerned  about  how  their  stories  will  film  than 
about  how  the  manuscripts  will  grade  as  pieces 
of  literature.  To  get  a  yarn  into  print  is  still 
worth  while  because  this  enhances  its  value  in 
the  eyes  of  the  producers  of  motion  pictures. 
But  the  author's  real  goal  is  "no  longer  good 
writing,  so  much  as  remunerative  picture  possibil- 
ities." 

We  set  this  down  not  because  we  believe  it 
true  of  the  majority  of  our  brother  craftsmen, 
but  because  evidences  of  such  influences  are  un- 
deniably present,  and  do  not  appear  to  have  done 
the  art  of  writing  fiction  any  appreciable  benefit. 


78     IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

If  your  trade  is  non-fiction,  and  you  turn  to  fic- 
tion to  improve  your  art  rather  than  your  bank 
account,  good  counsel  will  admonish  you  not  tc 
aim  at  any  other  mark  than  the  best  that  you  can 
produce  in  the  way  of  literary  art.  For  there 
lies  the  deepest  satisfaction  a  writer  can  ever 
secure — "art  makes  living  worth  his  while." 


CHAPTER  X 

FOREVER  AT  THE   CROSSROADS 

KEEP  studying.  Keep  experimenting.  Set 
yourself  harder  tasks.  Never  be  content 
with  what  you  have  accomplished.  Match  your- 
self against  the  men  who  can  outplay  you,  not 
against  the  men  you  already  excel.  Keep  at- 
tempting something  that  baffles  you.  Discon- 
tent is  your  friend  more  often  than  your  enemy. 
From  the  moment  that  he  is  graduated  out 
of  the  cub  reporter  class,  every  writer  who  is 
worth  his  salt  is  forever  at  the  crossroads,  per- 
plexed about  the  next  turn.  Nowhere  is  smug- 
ness of  mind  more  deadly  than  in  journalism. 
To  progress  you  must  forever  scale  more  diffi- 
cult ascents.  The  bruises  of  rebuffs  and  the 
wounds  of  injured  vanity  will  heal  quickly 
enough  if  you  keep  busy.  Defeated  or  unde- 
feated, the  writer  who  always  is  trying  to  mas- 
ter something  more  difficult  than  the  work  he 
used  to  do  preserves  his  self-respect  and  the  re- 
spect of  his  worth-while  neighbors.  The  fellow 
with  the  canker  at  his  heart  is  not  the  battler 
79 


80    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

but  the  envious  shirker  who  is  too  "proud"  to 
risk  a  fall. 

Swallow  what  you  suppose  to  be  your  pride; 
it  really  is  a  false  sense  of  dignity.  Make  a 
simple  beginning  in  the  university  of  experience 
by  learning  with  experiments  what  constitutes  a 
"story"  and  by  drudging  with  pencil  and  type- 
writer to  put  that  "story"  into  professional  manu- 
script form.  Get  the  right  pictures  for  it ;  then 
ship  it  off  to  market.  If  the  first  choice  of  mar- 
kets rejects  you,  try  the  second,  the  third,  fourth, 
fifth  and  sixth— even  unto  the  ninety-and-ninth. 

Few  beginners  have  even  a  dim  notion  of  the 
great  variety  of  markets  that  exist  for  free  lance 
contributions.  There  are  countless  trade  pub- 
lications, newspaper  syndicates,  class  journals, 
"house  organs,"  and  magazines  devoted  to  highly 
specialized  interests.  Nearly  all  of  these  publica- 
tions are  eager  to  buy  matter  of  interest  to  their 
particular  circles  of  readers.  Every  business, 
every  profession,  every  trade,  every  hobby  has 
its  mouthpiece. 

Remember  this  when  you  are  a  beginner  and 
the  "big  magazines"  of  general  circulation  are 
rejecting  your  manuscripts  with  a  clock-like  regu- 
larity which  drives  you  almost  to  despair.  Try 
your  'prentice  hand  on  contributions  to  the 
smaller  publications.  That  is  the  surest  way  to 
"learn  while  you  earn"  in  free  lancing.  These 


FOREVER  AT  THE  CROSSROADS    81 

humble  markets  need  not  cause  you  to  sneer — 
particularly  if  you  happen  to  be  a  humble  be- 
ginner. 

Every  laboratory  experiment  in  manuscript 
writing  and  marketing,  though  it  be  only  a  de- 
scription of  a  shop  window  for  a  dry  goods 
trade  paper,  or  an  interview  with  a  boss  plumber 
for  the  Gas  Fitter's  Gazette,  will  furnish  you 
with  experience  in  your  own  trade,  and  set 
you  ahead  a  step  on  the  long  road  that  leads  to 
the  most  desirable  acceptances.  The  one  thing 
to  watch  zealously  is  your  own  development,  to 
make  sure  that  you  do  not  too  soon  content  your- 
self with  achievements  beneath  your  capabilities. 
Start  with  the  little  magazines,  but  keep  attempt- 
ing to  attain  the  more  difficult  goals. 

Meanwhile,  you  need  not  apologize  to  any  one 
for  the  nature  of  your  work,  so  long  as  it  is 
honest  reporting  and  all  as  well  written  as  you 
know  how  to  make  it.  Stevenson,  one  of  the 
most  conscientious  of  literary  artists,  declared 
in  a  "Letter  to  a  Young  Gentleman  Who  Pro- 
poses to  Embrace  the  Career  of  Art,"  that  "the 
first  duty  in  this  world  is  for  a  man  to  pay  his 
way,"  and  this  is  one  of  your  confessed  purposes 
while  you  are  serving  this  kind  of  journalistic 
apprenticeship. 

Until  he  arrives,  the  novice  must,  indeed,  un- 
less he  be  exceptionally  gifted,  "pay  assiduous 


82     IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

court  to  the  bourgeois  who  carries  the  purse. 
And  if  in  the  course  of  these  capitulations  he 
shall  falsify  his  talent,  it  can  never  have  been  a 
strong  one,  and  he  will  have  preserved  a  better 
thing  than  talent — character.  Or  if  he  be  of  a 
mind  so  independent  that  he  cannot  stoop  to  this 
necessity,  one  course  is  yet  open:  he  can  desist 
from  art,  and  follow  some  more  manly  way  of 
life." 

In  short,  so  long  as  you  keep  moving  toward 
something  worth  attaining,  there  is  nothing  to 
worry  about  but  how  to  keep  from  relapsing  into 
smugness  or  idleness.  The  besetting  temptation 
of  the  free  lance  is  to  pamper  himself.  He  is  his 
own  boss,  can  sleep  as  late  as  he  likes,  go  where 
he  pleases  and  quit  work  when  the  temptation 
seizes  him.  As  a  result,  he  usually  babies  him- 
self and  turns  out  much  less  work  than  he  might 
safely  attempt  without  in  the  least  endangering 
his  health. 

When  he  finds  out  later  how  assiduously  some 
of  the  best  known  of  our  authors  keep  at  their 
desks  he  becomes  a  little  ashamed  of  himself. 
Though  they  may  not  work,  on  the  average,  as 
long  hours  as  the  business  man,  they  toil  far 
harder,  and  usually  with  few  of  the  interrup- 
tions and  relaxations  from  the  job  that  the  busi- 
ness man  is  allowed.  Four  or  five  hours  of  in- 
tense application  a  day  stands  for  a  great  deal 


FOREVER  AT  THE  CROSSROADS  83 

more  expenditure  of  energy  and  thought  than 
eight  or  nine  hours  broken  up  with  periods  when 
one's  feet  are  literally  or  metaphorically  on  the 
desk  and  genial  conversation  is  flowing.  Most 
of  the  men  and  women  who  make  a  living  out 
of  free  lancing  earn  every  blessed  cent  of  it; 
and  the  amount  upon  which  they  pay  an  income 
tax  is,  as  a  rule,  proportioned  rather  justly  to 
the  amount  of  concentrated  labor  that  they  pom 
into  the  hopper  of  the  copy  mill. 

You  who  happen  to  have  seen  a  successful 
free  lance  knock  off  work  in  mid-afternoon  to 
play  tennis,  or  to  skim  away  toward  the  coun- 
try club  in  his  new  motor  car  are  too  likely  to 
exclaim  that  "his  is  the  existence!"  Forgetting, 
of  course,  the  lonesome  hours  of  more  or  less 
baffling  effort  that  he  spent  that  day  upon  a 
manuscript  before  he  locked  up  his  workshop. 
And  the  years  he  spent  in  drudgery,  the  bales 
of  rejection  slips  he  collected,  the  times  that  he 
had  to  pawn  his  watch  and  stick  pin  to  buy  a 
dinner  or  to  pay  the  rent  of  a  hall  bedroom. 

Young  Gentlemen  Who  Propose  to  Embrace 
the  Career  of  Art  might  be  shocked  to  learn — 
though  it  would  be  all  for  their  own  good — that 
a  great  many  writers  who  are  generally  regarded 
with  envy  for  their  "luck"  take  the  pains  to  fol- 
low the  market  notes  in  the  Authors'  League 
Bulletin,  the  Bookman  and  the  Editor  Magazine 


84    IF  YOU  DON'T  WRITE  FICTION 

with  all  the  care  of  a  contractor  studying  the 
latest  news  of  building  operations.  Not  only 
do  these  writers  read  the  trade  papers  of  their 
calling;  they  also,  with  considerable  care,  study 
the  magazines  to  which  they  sell — or  hope  to  sell 
— manuscripts.  They  do  not  nearly  so  often  as 
the  novice  make  the  faux  pas  of  offering  an 
editor  exactly  the  same  sort  of  material  that  he 
already  has  printed  in  a  recent  or  a  current  issue. 
They  follow  the  new  books.  They  keep  card 
indexes  on  their  unmarketed  manuscripts,  and 
toil  on  as  much  irksome  office  routine  as  a  stock 
broker.  A  surprisingly  large  number  of  the 
"arrived"  do  not  even  hold  themselves  above 
keeping  note  books,  or  producing,  chiefly  for  the 
beneficial  exercise  of  it,  essays,  journals,  de- 
scriptions, verse  and  fiction  not  meant  to  be  of- 
fered for  sale — solely  copybook  exercises,  pro- 
duced for  self -improvement  or  to  gratify  an 
impulse  toward  non-commercial  art. 

For  instances  I  can  name  a  fiction  writer  who 
turns  often  to  the  essay  form,  but  never  pub- 
lishes this  type  of  writing,  and  an  editorial  writer 
who,  for  the  "fun  of  it"  and  the  good  he  believes 
it  does  his  style,  composes  every  year  a  great 
deal  of  verse.  A  group  of  six  Michigan  writers 
publish  their  own  magazine,  a  typewritten  pub- 
lication with  a  circulation  of  six. 

These  men  are  not  content  with  their  present 


FOREVER  AT  THE  CROSSROADS    85 

h 

athievements."^  They  regard  themselves  always 
as  students  who  must  everlastingly  keep  trying 
more  difficult  tasks  to  insure  a  steady  progress 
toward  an  unattainable  goal.  "Most  of  the  study- 
in'/'  Abe  Martin  once  observed,  "is  done  after  a 
feller  gets  out  of  college,"  and  these  gray-haired 
exemplars  are — as  all  of  us  ought  to  be — still 
learning  to  write,  and  forever  at  the  crossroads. 


FINIS 


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